It's the End of the World as He Knows It
by DoofusPrime
Summary: Caught between hordes of bloodthirsty zombies and a group of survivors who might be more dangerous to him than any bite from the undead, Daryl Dixon is feeling anything but fine.
1. Those Darn Lens Caps

**It's the End of the World as He Knows It, **by DoofusPrime

_**Notes:** This is basically going to be a not-very-serious parody / alternate take on season 2 as it's aired so far, with Daryl getting a lot of the focus, although not exclusively. This is my first Walking Dead fic, so hopefully you guys enjoy it. I'm rating it T, but this _is_ a comedy fic for a zombie show, so expect some gore and inappropriateness._

_**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. This work was not created for profit. No copyright infringement is intended._

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**Those Darn Lens Caps**

XX

The end of the world: what a concept. In some ways, it wasn't much different than the way things used to be. But in other ways? What a pain in the ass.

Daryl Dixon lay on the hood of an abandoned car, soaking up some sun and picking lazily at his teeth with a toothpick he had found in the car's glove compartment. Stuck between two of his molars was some beef jerky he had found after rummaging around in Dale's camper. He wondered how long beef jerky would last in the apocalypse. He picked up the bag and gave it a look. No expiration date. Maybe Vienna sausages would last longer. Not that Daryl ever ate _that_ kind of stuff - that was rich people food. He barely even knew where Vienna was, much less why they made so many sausages. As far as he was concerned, some roasted squirrel meat on a stick beat any of that fancy stuff. Even the beef jerky.

"Hey, can I have some of that?"

Daryl squinted down at Rick and Lori's kid. Carl, if he was remembering right. The kid was standing next to the car and holding out his hand, expecting some beef jerky, like the stuff grew on trees or something. "Don't think so, kid," he said. "Get outta here."

Carl grumbled and headed off down the highway to look at some more abandoned cars. Daryl watched him as he ran away; that little girl, Sophia, was running around with him too. He let out an irritated grunt. What was up with these people? Letting their kids run around wild on the highway with a bunch of brain munching corpses walking around everywhere? Sure, kids' brains were smaller, so the zombies probably went for them last, but it was the principle of the thing. He propped himself up and looked over his shoulder, glancing at Dale's nearby camper to make sure Dale was still on top keeping lookout. The old man was up there sitting in his folding chair with his binoculars, although for all Daryl knew, he was up there catching some shuteye while zombies were coming down the road to eat them.

And _that_ was what was different about the end of the world: all the people.

The end of the world itself wasn't that surprising, as Daryl, Merle, and their whole family had always been expecting the government to tighten the noose sooner or later. Zombies were more of a surprise, but the basic principle was the same. Daryl had always figured he'd be out on his own in an apocalypse, except for his brother of course. Just the two of them, living off the land and stealing from the occasional store. And that wouldn't be much different than what they had always done ever since they were kids.

But here he was, stuck with a group of jackasses without a clue between them, led by some law man as they tried to make their way to some stupid military base where they'd probably get shot by the army. Didn't these people see any movies? That was what happened in an outbreak, or whatever this was. Even that stupid CDC guy had almost killed them all, and he was supposed to be a fancy pants doctor or something like that. And worst of all, his brother was gone; probably dead. One-handed, at least. Daryl never would have believed it would come to this.

_ Hard to fire a shotgun with one hand_, Daryl thought. _Unless you were Arnold whatsisname in that cyborg movie_.

"Zombies!"

Daryl heard the shout overhead, lingering in the sweltering air. He leaped up from the car's roof.

"Zombies, straight ahead!"

Dale was gesticulating wildly on the roof of the camper. Daryl swore and waved at him to stop making such a spectacle – what was his problem? That old fool was going to draw those things' attention in no time, acting like that. He saw Rick and Lori pop their heads up from some car they had been ransacking for loot. T-Dog was farther ahead, weaving in and out of cars for cover.

Daryl ran past the camper to take a look where Dale was pointing. There was the rest of the group, right in front of him. Mostly people he didn't recognize, but then sometimes he lost track of the people in their group since he didn't know jack about half of them. But wait a minute, no – Daryl took a closer look and spat a half-eaten chunk of jerky from his mouth. This was bad. _Nobody_ looked that dirty, even after a few days in rural Georgia without a shower.

They were zombies!

"Good lord!" he shouted at Dale. "Why didn't you warn us sooner!"

"I didn't see them!"

"You got binoculars up there, don't you?"

"I must have left the lens caps on!"

Daryl slapped a hand to his forehead and pulled his crossbow over his back, taking aim at the nearest zombie as Dale clambered down the camper before they could surround him. Some of the others in their group appeared from elsewhere on the highway: that Asian kid, whatever his name was, and that blonde girl who tried to blow herself up at the CDC, who had just darted into the camper. More zombies were appearing. A whole herd of them, coming around the sides of the camper and lurching drunkenly through the rows of abandoned cars, like flesh-eating cows in a very slow stampede. Daryl wondered if cows could be zombies. If they were, did they enjoy chewing their cud anymore? It was an interesting question. But no - there was no time for that, he had to-

"Everyone get down!" shouted Rick. "Beneath the cars! There's no way they'll find us!"

Daryl watched in amazement as Rick and the others scrambled down beneath the nearest cars they could find. He turned back to the camper – the zombies had already surrounded it. Shambling figures, streaked in dirt and blood, their mouths opened wide like hungry black holes yearning for flesh. He noticed a couple of them sniffing the air. One of them was trying really hard, as it had no nose to sniff with.

"Hey, idiots," he said. "They can smell us, remember?"

Rick poked his head out from beneath the car for a moment, and then scrambled back out again.

"I forgot about that," he said. "What do we do now?"

"_Aaagh!_"

Daryl whipped around, crossbow at the ready; it was T-Dog. Daryl flinched at the sight of T-Dog holding his arm as he stood by a wrecked car, trying to staunch a stream of blood that was spattering onto the highway's sun-baked asphalt. "What happened?" asked Rick.

"I was ducking down to hide behind this mangled car door with all the jagged pieces of metal sticking out, and I cut my arm! Never saw that comin' in a million years!"

"We gotta get outta here," said Daryl. "Those meatbags can smell fresh blo-"

"_Aaagh!_"

Daryl was getting tired of all the screaming, but he didn't have time to tell T-Dog to shut up, seeing as four or five zombies had zeroed in on him faster than the rest. Carol screeched as they swarmed on T-Dog like bees on a flower, at least if they were zombie bees and the flower was, like, some kind of really juicy flesh flower. Daryl shot one of them through the head with a crossbow bolt, but it was no use. T-Dog was done for.

"Everyone run!" he screamed.

"_Why!_" screamed T-Dog. "Why's it always gotta be the black guy!"

Daryl grimaced as one of the zombies tore a chunk of T-Dog's flesh away, just like it was a piece of wet dough. He felt guilty at the sudden feeling that set his belly rumbling; something about the grisly scene made him hungry. Maybe he hadn't eaten enough beef jerky. But this was no time to be thinking about snacks. T-Dog screamed, buried under a pile of festering flesh.

It was too bad; Daryl and his brother had always been the white power types, and sure, maybe T-Dog was directly responsible for his brother's death, but he didn't actually seem all that bad. And he was the token black person in the group after that one black lady blew herself up in the CDC building; _now_ how was Daryl going to grudgingly increase his racial sensitivities! He didn't even know what the name T-Dog stood for!

"Sophia? Sophia! _Nooo!_"

Carol screamed from across the highway. Daryl had gotten split off from the rest of the group, lost in thought about poor T-Dog turning into zombie chow. The upside to the guy's death was that the zombies were distracted, but still more of them had lumbered out from around the cars and the camper. He barely had time to dodge a pair of grasping, bony fingers as he dodged in between abandoned cars to cross the road and gain some distance from the undead horde. Rick fired off a shot from his rifle, nearly exploding one zombie's head and showering Daryl with hot brain chunks. He gave Rick a glare when he reached the rest of the group, who were already retreating to God knew where.

Now that he was at the guardrails on the side of the highway, Daryl saw why Carol was screaming. Her daughter, Sophia, was running down the grassy slope that led away from the road, headed towards the forest with a group of zombies in hot pursuit. _Man_, those things could run fast when they were hungry. And it looked like Daryl's hypothesis was wrong, too – they liked kids' brains just as much as any others. Before anybody could stop her, Carol leaped over the guardrail and ran off after her daughter as the girl disappeared into the woods.

"We gotta get off the road, anyway," said Rick. "Here they come. Let's get a move on."

"_Carl!_"

The zombies had gotten too close. Lori screamed as one of them grabbed Carl and dragged him from her grasp, biting him viciously on the arm. Carl squealed as the zombie pulled a bloody chunk away, its milk-white eyes rolling with pleasure at the taste of fresh blood. Dale and Glenn both kicked it away with a loud crunch of bone, but it clung tenaciously until Lori managed to pry its hands away from her son. Daryl was amazed at how strong the things were, considering they were basically bags of rotting meat.

"Oh, no! My little boy!"

"Carl," said Rick, his voice cracked with worry. "Are you okay?"

"Not really, dad. I just got bit by a zombie."

Daryl shook his head. He didn't want to be judgmental or anything, seeing as their kid was definitely gonna turn into a zombie now, but talk about crappy parenting. What did they _think_ was gonna happen, letting those two kids run around on the highway like it was vacation time? He would have locked both of them into that camper 24 / 7 – and not just because kids were annoying as hell, either.

The zombies were drawing closer, coming through the cars more quickly, their hands outstretched with dark desire, lured by the screams and gunshots. Rick picked up Carl and slung him over his back, which Daryl thought was a little insulting considering it wasn't like the kid had been bitten on his feet or anything. The group vaulted over the guardrail and left the highway, heading towards the forest outskirts where Sophia and her mother had disappeared.

"Carol!" yelled Daryl. "Wait up - we're comin', too!"

A few zombies which had been coming after Carol and Sophia turned back out of the forest at the sound of his voice, gnashing their teeth eagerly at the sight of more prey. Daryl clubbed one of them with the butt of his crossbow, while Dale pulled a screwdriver out of nowhere and stabbed one through the eye. The third one sort of gawked at them until somebody kicked it in the leg and knocked it over. More zombies were stumbling and crawling down the slope from the highway, emerging from the abandoned cars like a disturbed hive of smelly undead ants. Darly had a lot of animal metaphors on the brain, for some reason. Maybe it was the beef jerky.

Their path was clear for a moment, at least. They headed into the woods. Through the trees, Daryl could see Carol as she thrashed through the underbrush ahead of them. "Sophia!" he heard her yell. At this rate, with all the noise they were making, every zombie in Georgia would be on them like white on rice. _Rice_, Daryl thought. His stomach growled. He wished the apocalypse had more food.

"There's one up ahead!"

The group stopped for a moment. Sure enough, there was a figure up ahead in the underbrush. Andrea appeared from behind them and sidled up beside Rick. "Don't worry, guys," she said. "I got out of the camper alright!"

Daryl hadn't been worrying. He had almost forgotten about her, actually.

"I figured out how to put a pistol together while I was holed up in there," she said. "Thanks to you, Shane. I think I can handle myself with the guns now. Here, let me get that zombie for you, Rick."

She grabbed the rifle from Rick before anyone could object and shouldered it, aiming straight at the figure obscured by the undergrowth just ahead of them. Seeing as Carol was running up ahead in pursuit of her daughter, this looked like a dangerous situation – especially since Andrea was aiming that gun about as well as Daryl aimed a stream of pee after eight cans of beer. Before he could grab the gun away from her, she fired – but just as she did, another shot rang out, like an echo. The group jumped back in shock as Andrea flew backwards and hit the forest floor with a loud thud.

"Oh, man! I'm so sorry!"

The voice rang out from ahead of them. Daryl aimed his crossbow; but it was no zombie. Out from the bushes emerged a heavyset man with his own rifle. "I didn't mean to shoot her!" he said. He stared down in shock at Andrea as she groaned, clutching a spreading red stain on her shirt. "I thought she was a deer! See, right there, behind you guys!"

Daryl turned around to find a deer staring at them, looking about as perplexed as deer can look.

"Jesus H. Christ!" he yelled. "Don't nobody here know how to use a gun?"

"I do!" said Shane.

"Look at that deer, son," said Rick. "Isn't it beautiful?"

Carl shrugged, still slung over his father's shoulder. "It's a deer. Could we keep running? By the way, I can walk just fine. I was only bitten on the-"

"Sssh, quiet, son. You're delirious."

Rick transferred Carl to his wife as the deer watched them quizzically. He and Rick helped Andrea off the ground, but just as the group was about to move again, a group of zombies charged out of the bushes and ambushed the deer, bringing it down to the ground and tearing ravenously as it thrashed in terror. "Run!" shouted Rick.

Fortunately, the dying deer seemed to be distracting the zombies for a moment; the group took off in the direction Carol was heading as the fat new guy with the rifle joined them. "Sorry about shooting you," he told Andrea. "I don't know why that kind of thing keeps happenin' to me."

Daryl watched uneasily as the new guy barged through the woods beside him, rifle flailing around as he apologized to Andrea. Fortunately, Rick had grabbed his own rifle back from Andrea, but Daryl was starting to get the feeling he was more likely to get shot by somebody before he got bit by a zombie. Not only that, but the group was slowing him down now; Andrea was injured pretty badly, and Rick and Lori seemed to think Carl was incapable of movement anymore. Daryl knew _he'd_ do okay lost in a forest, seeing as him and Merle had sometimes spent days at a time hidden out in the woods whenever they were on the run from some angry, shotgun-toting father of a girl Merle had slept with - but he got the feeling everybody else in their little group would probably die in half a day.

"I can't find her!" said Carol as they finally caught up to her. She was out of breath, pausing for a moment and looking around at the sun-dappled trees. A stream gurgled to their left, winding its way through the greenery. They had gotten some distance from their pursuers, at least. The faint moans of zombies wafted through the air behind them, although they were growing louder again. Sophia was nowhere in sight. "Where did she go?"

"No idea," said Rick. "Maybe she'll circle around back to the camper."

"But there's zombies up there!"

Daryl wondered if there was any point in pointing out that they had no idea where they were going. Away from the zombies, he supposed. That was all that mattered at the moment. They were about to start following the stream when the sound of galloping hooves reached them through the trees. After a moment, a woman on the back of a horse appeared, bearing down on them fast and then reining in the horse just before it crushed Daryl beneath its legs. Daryl stumbled back as the horse reared up with a whinny. "Sorry," said the woman. "Let go of the reins for a minute there. Name's Maggie."

First out of control rifles, now out of control horses. Daryl was starting to think about taking the stream and ditching these people. "Who the hell are you?" he said.

"She's from the farm," said the man with the rifle who had shot Andrea.

"And who are _you_, anyway?" added Daryl.

"We're from the farm!"

"You guys better follow me," said the girl on the horse. "We got a farm through the woods a little ways off where you guys can hole up for a while."

"What about my daughter?" said Carol.

"We'll have to search for her," said Daryl, "but there ain't no point in it now, with all these zombies swarmin' through the woods. We gotta get 'em off our trail somehow."

"Good idea," said Rick. "Maybe you and Dale can head back to the highway and get to the camper again, try to draw some of them along with you? Then you guys can meet up with us at this farm once Maggie gives us the directions. Once we're out of danger we can go looking for Sophia, but right now we need to get Andrea and Carl to safety."

It took Daryl a moment to realize he had just gotten himself roped into being zombie bait so the rest of the group could head through the woods without being followed all the way to this farm. He grumbled as Dale slapped him on the back and listened to Maggie giving them directions to find the farm from the highway. He supposed he had to do it, anyway – he was the only one who could get anybody back to the highway without getting lost in these woods. Rick and the rest of them probably couldn't find their way out of a paper bag.

"At least I got the camper working," said Dale.

Daryl shrugged indifferently. "Whatever. I still don't know why we're drivin' that thing around. What's it get, like 2 miles per gallon? I mean, okay, I guess gas is pretty cheap now with everybody dead and all, but we gotta fill that thing up at every rest stop even when it is workin' fine. And you ever thought about the ozone layer?"

Not that Daryl really thought much about the ozone layer himself, but he just felt like being argumentative. And besides - maybe these zombies were nature's way of getting rid of its irritating human itch. A few too many puffs of greenhouse gas and Mother Nature decided it was time to take a little zombie medication so things could go back to their pristine beauty. That crazy CDC guy hadn't thought of _that_, not even with all his fancy-ass science degrees. Daryl felt a surge of satisfaction at his clever theory.

As he and Dale headed back towards the group of zombies who were still munching on the dead deer, Daryl's momentary good mood turned sour. Time to run around like chickens with their heads cut off until they got back to the highway. He wondered why the hell he was still hanging around with these people. It was the end of the world, and all of a sudden he was turning into a social butterfly. And were they _really_ gonna treat Rick like a leader? The guy who got himself stuck in a tank? Nothing good was gonna come out of any of this. He wished his brother was still around; the two of them would do just fine together.

But more than that, he wished he could have gotten this damn piece of jerky out of his teeth before he dropped that toothpick back on the highway.

XX

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_**Notes** - That's it for chapter one. Like I said, this is my first Walking Dead fic, so any reviews and feedback would be appreciated. I'm making no promises about people always being in character, mainly because I'll often be parodying and exaggerating them as well as parodying various events of season 2 so far, and probably going in my own direction eventually. We'll see how off-the-wall I get._


	2. Love is in the Air

**Love is in the Air**

XX

It would have been a beautiful day, if it wasn't for the zombie hordes and everything. Being an expert at sneaking around in forests, Daryl had a pretty easy time getting most of the zombies distracted from the main group in the woods and following him instead as he returned to the highway. He even had some time to enjoy the scenery, poking around at the little creek bed and skipping a few smooth pebbles just before the zombies got close enough to take a bite out of him. He called out for Sophia a few times, but the girl didn't answer. Could be she was scared of him. Or it could be one of those zombies was carrying her along in its belly. Probably the latter.

Daryl said goodbye to T-Unit or whatever his name was when he got back to the highway. A lot of the guy was already zombie chow, but what was left had become a full on zombie - there was enough left over to find him on the highway, baking and congealing into the asphalt, trying to drag himself along with the ragged stumps of his arms, most of his lower body gone. It was a mess. Human roadkill. Daryl shot him in the head with a crossbow bolt and braced his foot against what was left of the body as he pulled the bolt free again. "Adios, T-Dog," he said. "Probably luckier than the rest of us."

He wondered why sometimes people got totally eaten, and sometimes they just got bit a few times before turning into zombies. Seemed like it wasn't very consistent. Didn't God, or the scientists, or whoever was responsible for all this crap spend a little time thinking about the rules? Apparently not. Maybe this was what happened when people stopped following the rules. He remembered some preacher on TV talking about people turning away from God, trying to kill the big guy in the sky with philosophy and science. Like those would be enough to do the job if God really existed.

But maybe that _was_ it. Maybe God was dead. Maybe the big guy in the sky had been gone for a while. The walking dead were just a sign that things were busted. Like cracks in the wall of a big old house, which was breaking down because nobody was tending it anymore and keeping everything in its place. Life, death – it was all mixed up now. It was all a big mess of cosmic roadkill, like T-Pain on the road there.

Daryl looked up into the sky before he got into the camper. "Ain't like you ever did much anyway.".

It was time to head out and find the ranch where the rest of the group was headed. Trying to drive backwards through all those cars scattered on the highway was a real pain in the ass, though. He wondered why people left their cars like that – was there some herd of zombies that came up on them out of the blue, like what happened to them earlier, so everybody had to scram? He would have thought the cars would be in rows, at least, not scattered all over the highway. If Merle had been here, he would have said it was like a bunch of women drivers had run off to handle their lady business. Of course, seeing as Merle had crashed four or five cars himself – mostly stolen – maybe that was hypocritical.

Either way, once he got past the cars, he found the place to turn off the highway and find the ranch that girl on the horse had been talking about. A winding dirt road went a little ways though the forest, which opened up to a white-washed house with a big porch. A pickup truck was parked nearby. Daryl saw some horses off in the distance, and a barn across some fields. The place looked pretty nice; no zombies in sight, either. It reminded him of a place he lived with his brother and his father, before they had to sell it off after their old man lost all his money on gambling and whores - Merle took after the old man, when it came to that kind of thing.

This place didn't have any pink flamingos or old tires lying around in the yard, though. But it was pretty close.

An old man opened the screen door and walked down from the porch when Daryl got out of the camper. "Welcome to my home," he said. "Your friends are already inside. My name is Herschel."

"No kidding. Like the chocolate?"

"No, that's Hershey. I'm Herschel Greene. Please, come inside."

"Camper's okay there in the front?"

"You ran over my begonias," said Herschel. "But the Lord teaches us to forgive."

"Uh, yeah, alright."

Inside the house, Glenn and Dale sat around the kitchen table with some other people – probably Herschel's family, Daryl guessed. He saw Rick and Lori in a bedroom, tending to their kid since he got bit by one of those zombies earlier. The kid was lying in bed even though he just had a bite on the arm, while Andrea – who had been shot by that chubby rifle-toting hunter guy – was sitting on a chair nearby, gasping for breath. "Excuse me," said Herschel, popping his head through the door where Daryl was looking, "perhaps the two of you could offer the bed to that young lady? I'd like to take a look at her."

"What lady?" said Lori, poking at her son's arm injury despite his best attempts to wriggle away.

"The blonde woman sitting in the chair there."

"Andrea," said Andrea.

"Andrea," said Herschel. "She's been shot in the stomach by Otis, has she not?"

"But my boy!" screamed Rick. "He's been bit! Andrea wants to die, anyway! She almost got herself blown up at the CDC building until Dale dragged her out – remember that, Daryl?"

Daryl shrugged, not wanting to get involved.

"I kind of want to live now," said Andrea. "I changed my mind."

Rick and Lori grumbled as they reluctantly let Carl get up from the bed – they had been practically holding him down anyway – and made room for Andrea to take his place while Herschel took a look at her injury. Daryl couldn't help craning his neck when Herschel held up her shirt, but he didn't manage to see anything. Stupid old man. He noticed Dale, who had just entered the room, shoot him a disapproving look. Daryl shrugged innocently. He was just concerned about his attractive blonde acquaintance, that was all!

After a moment of faint clucks and whistles, Herschel shook his head ominously. "It doesn't look good," he said. "I need medicine and supplies that we don't have here in order to treat her properly."

"What," said Daryl, "you some kinda doctor?"

"I happen to be a veterinarian, but that does not necessarily mean I can do anything to help your friend here. This young lady is no spring chicken."

"Hey!" said Andrea indignantly. "I'm a lot younger than you!"

"No, I meant literally. I'm best with chickens. I am a farmer, after all."

"I thought you said you were a veterinarian?"

"I am a man of many talents," said Herschel. "I can tie a cherry stem with my tongue, as well."

Daryl shuddered at the mental image. By this time, Glenn, Carol, and a couple of Herschel's family members had joined the rest of them in the bedroom, watching Herschel as he poked at Andrea's wound. Once Herschel finished with his inspection, he stood up and looked at his guests. "Maggie," he said, "could you go into town and look for some medical supplies? And perhaps one of our guests could go with you."

"Glenn'll do it!" said Rick. "He used to be a pizza boy. Good at running around with stuff balanced in his hands."

"Wait," said Glenn, "I'm not sure I want to-"

Herschel shook Glenn's hand. "Wonderful," he said. "It will be dark soon, so you'll want to make a quick return, before the both of you are ripped from your horses and devoured by a hungry mob of the undead. Still, I hope they have what I need at the CVS pharmacy," he said as he walked over to a desk and began writing out a list of items. "Even before the zombie apocalypse, it was such a pain to get anything there without a member's card..."

"I think there was some kinda medical station set up at the high school," said Otis. "Maybe they got something there? It's the least I could do after I shot her. Even though she shot at me first."

Andrea rolled her eyes at the comment.

"That's what you say every time you're hunting deer and accidentally shoot an innocent stranger and drag him bleeding to the ranch," said Herschel, his voice tinged with gentle admonishment.

"Fair enough."

"The medical station sounds like a good idea. But you'll need a partner, too. Would anyone like to volunteer?"

"Shane'll do it!" said Rick, slapping his friend on the back. "He's always up for that kinda thing."

"Wait, what?" asked Shane. "I don't even know what that-"

"Wonderful," said Herschel, shaking Shane's hand. "Just in case any of you are eaten alive by zombies before the night is through, it was a pleasure being acquainted with you all. Good luck."

Carol choked back a sob as the two groups got ready to leave the farmhouse. "Wait a minute!" she said. "What about Sophia? She's out there in the forest, all alone-"

"She'll be fine," said Rick. "She's just gotta hide under a rock or something. We need to get something to eat and then get some rest, anyway – I haven't gotten much sleep on the road."

The group mumbled in agreement as they filtered out of the bedroom, heading off in the direction of the kitchen. Herschel looked annoyed that they were all about to raid his fridge. But hey, thought Daryl, they were all his guests. They had to eat sometime. Daryl wondered if there was any beef jerky in any of the cupboards. Just as he was about to take a look, he noticed Carol, standing there with her lower lip quivering. He felt bad for the woman, even if she was still doing pretty good compared to T-Dog, relatively speaking. But she did lose _her_ daughter.

Of course, maybe Sophia was still alive, but, well – who was he kidding? That girl was poop through a corpse by now. It was a sad sight to see Carol crying, even if she kind of creeped him out after he saw her beat her ex-husband's zombie face into mush like forty times in a row. Sure, maybe it was cathartic, but at some point the face is just gone, and you can stop beating. But he still sympathized. He had been thinking about Carol's loss while he was heading back to the highway earlier, and he had found something in the forest he thought might pick up her spirits. Now was as good at a time as any to give it to her.

"Here," he said, pulling a white flower out of his pants pocket. It was a bit crushed, and it smelled like sweat, but it was still recognizably a flower. "I picked this off the highway for you."

Carol sniffed and took the flower. "Really? That's so sweet of you." She smelled the flower and smiled tentatively. "What does it represent?"

Daryl was at a loss for words. He scratched his head and wracked his brains. Represent? He had just picked the thing because it looked kinda pretty. What the hell was she talking about? "Um, it's – well, it's uh," - he stammered, stumbling on his words - "it's some kinda Indian thing. Yeah, that's it. There was this old story – see, the Indians, they lost some kids or somethin', but then the flower grew where the kids were. Not that the Indian kids were dead – I'm not sayin' your kid is dead or nothin', I'm just sayin', with the kids, it's sorta like-"

"It's alright," said Carol with a smile. "I understand."

Daryl breathed a sigh of a relief. He wasn't so good with the storytelling. Merle was better at that, although his stories got kind of scary when he was tripping on whatever he had bought last from Murray, their local drug dealer. Carol looked like she was feeling a little better, so Daryl nodded and left her in the bedroom with Carl. Come to think of it, that kid had been looking at the two of them like he was really hungry or something. Definitely a good idea to leave the bedroom. Daryl's stomach grumbled. There _had_ to be some beef jerky in the house.

XX

"So where are you from?"

Glenn almost missed Maggie's question, but it registered after he noticed the girl staring at him from the corner of his eye. He had been trying to avoid looking at her directly - not because he didn't want to, but because girls that pretty had a way of making him self-conscious. He had never been very smooth with the ladies, and this one was quite a lady. "Atlanta," he said. "What about you?"

"Here. Lived here all my life."

"Atlanta was a pretty cool place. I mean, before it turned into a death trap filled with zombies clogging every street. Not that it was much less crowded when everybody was alive. But people tipped pretty well, at least."

"Tipped?"

"Yeah. I used to deliver pizzas."

Maggie laughed. "There's our pizza place, right over there."

She pointed to a building to their left. A round, neon pizza sign hung inside the plate glass window, although Glenn doubted it would be glowing when the sun went down. While it was still afternoon at the moment, he wasn't looking forward to the evening. He had no evidence to support his hunch, but somehow Glenn felt like zombies were probably more active at night. It just seemed appropriate. That was when they could leap out at you from corners without you noticing until it was too late, after all. At least Maggie knew the way back. Rick had volunteered him because he knew his way around, whatever that meant, but it wasn't like some small town in the middle of the boondocks was the same thing as downtown Atlanta.

"Here we are," said Maggie. "The drug store."

Glenn was glad they were here. Hopefully, they could find what they needed and get back to the farmhouse before night fell. He had to look for some general medical supplies for Andrea and Carl's wounds, but Lori had also taken him aside earlier and asked him to look for some feminine products. A pregnancy test, and – if the plus sign turned up, he supposed – some morning after pills. He didn't have the heart to tell her that morning after pills only worked the morning after.

Or at least he _thought_ they didn't. Glenn had never needed to do much research on that kind of thing, being a guy and all. And not a guy who got girls pregnant, either. He hadn't really been with any girls in the past, and while taking a job as a pizza delivery guy had given him high hopes about unexpected sexual situations, it turned out that real life didn't work quite like it did in the pornos. Glenn had even tried to make double entendres a few times when beautiful girls showed up at the door, but as he soon learned, lines like 'I have an extra big sausage' only led to a whole bunch of confusion about why he had gotten the toppings mixed up when the lady had _clearly_ asked for ham and pineapple.

The two of them crept silently into the drug store and took a quick look around. The coast looked clear, Glenn thought. Time to focus completely on the shelves for the next few minutes; maybe it was best to look at the ones out here in the middle of the store and turn his back to that really dark back room over there. Yes, that seemed like the best idea. Glenn picked up a few things from the "feminine products" aisle, looking at the boxes in confusion. He had no idea what half of this stuff was for. Women were so confusing. Even when they _weren't_ talking.

"What are you lookin' for?"

Glenn jumped at the feeling of a hand on his left shoulder, accidentally knocking some of the boxes to the floor. He dropped to his knees and tried to pick them up again, but it was too late; Maggie had already seen them. She raised an eyebrow as he fumbled with a pregnancy test boxed kit, along with a roll of condoms he had somehow picked up unintentionally. Thank God they were magnums, at least. "You know," she said, "if you got a girlfriend who's pregnant, maybe you should read those condom directions a little closer."

"What?" laughed Glenn. "No, I don't have a girlfriend. Don't be ridiculous!" Maggie frowned as he made a nervous hacking sound in his throat; this was getting more embarrassing by the minute. He nervously tried to place some of the boxes back on their shelves, although he was knocking more off than he put back on. "I just like condoms a lot, that's all. Sometimes I blow them up like balloons, if it's a slow ni-"

Glenn jumped at the feeling of a hand touching his right shoulder. Maggie was sure touching his shoulders a lot. He turned and looked at her, thinking she was making some kind of move on him, but then grew confused. She wasn't touching him. He turned and saw that the other hand belonged to a man standing beside him. _That_ explained it.

"_Grarrgh!_"

Whoops. That was a zombie.

"Watch out! It's a zombie!"

Glenn stumbled back as cold fingers clutched at his shirt, trying to pull him closer as the zombie opened its stinking maw. His feet slipped beneath him as he tried to scramble back further, and he hit the shelving unit with a painful thud. The zombie drew closer, moaning with hunger. Just as it was about to sink its teeth into his throat, Glenn threw his roll of condoms straight into the zombie's mouth. The thing choked for a moment, its eyes widening in surprise before it finally managed to spit the condoms out again, giving Glenn and Maggie enough time to get back. "We need something to kill it with," said Glenn. "Did you bring a gun?"

"No, I didn't think we needed guns – nobody ever wanted to hang out in this stupid little town even when they were alive!"

Glenn looked around wildly as the zombie approached. It was knocking merchandise off the shelves as it swung its arms wildly, as if it could grab its prey if it tried hard enough, no matter how far away it was. Something on the floor caught Glenn's eye: a nail file! Suddenly, he was filled with a new appreciation for women's hygiene. He leaped forward, grabbed the file off the ground, and tried to pry it loose from its packaging.

"Hurry up, Glenn!"

"It's these stupid anti-theft packages they have nowadays! This plastic is unbreakable!"

Maggie tore the package from his grasp and opened it with one swift move. The zombie was almost on top of them now, and just before it attacked again, she clenched the nail file's handle in her fist and dove forward, stabbing the zombie repeatedly in the chest. Its jaws opened and shut angrily as she pounded the nail file's blade into its rotting flesh, tearing away chunks that spattered against her shirt and face. Glenn wrinkled his nose at the sight.

"Die, Mr. Willard, you judgmental zombie bastard!"

Apparently Maggie knew whoever the zombie used to be. Her attack was so ferocious that the thing hit the side of a shelf as it stepped backwards, tumbling to the ground and pulling Maggie down with it. Glenn dashed forward and tried to help her up as the zombie strained its head upwards, trying to bite her. "Go for its head!" he yelled.

"Oh, right."

The blade freed itself from the zombie's chest, and Maggie brought it up in a wide arc, almost catching Glenn accidentally as she plunged it down straight into the zombie's eye. She tore it out again, plunged it down, pulled up, thrust down, up, down, and, well – Glenn had to admit there was something kind of arousing about the whole scene. Finally, the zombie's writhing and twitching died down just as Maggie inadvertently dropped the nail file, which had become slick with gore. She sat on the corpse for a moment longer, breathing heavily.

"I think it's dead," Glenn said. "Uh – well, deader."

He helped Maggie up off the zombie's corpse. Which was a strange way of thinking about it, now that he thought about it. What was a zombie when it died again? A corpse corpse? Maggie wiped a couple chunks of zombie off her shirt and turned to him with a strange glint in her eye. For just a moment, Glenn thought she was about to attack him, too – but then her lips twisted into a wry smile.

"Something about all that stabbin' got me into a mood."

"A mood?"

"A mood."

"What kind of mood?"

Maggie looked around the floor for a moment. "You still got those condoms?"

_Score._

"Really? You'd want to do it with me? Why?"

Glenn realized that a stupid thing to ask, seeing as it made him sound like a total loser.

"I dunno," she said, looking him up and down. "You're a guy, I guess. Not many of those left."

It was the nicest thing he had ever heard.

As the two of them leaned into each other and embraced, Glenn felt the moist, room-temperature chunks of corpse flesh still remaining on Maggie's shirt, pressing against his body as her tongue pressed against his own. He felt happier than he had felt in a long time. And he was feeling something else, too. There was just something about those pregnancy tests, Lori's abortion pills, and the dead guy, Mr. Willard, lying the floor; or maybe it was just that gorgeous sunset outside the store windows, bathing them in a soft orange glow that helped mask the blood streaks on Maggie's face. Whatever the reason, there was definitely love in the air.


	3. Dinner is Served

**Dinner is Served**

XX

All morning, and no sign of Sophia. It was getting pretty obvious that the girl was zombie chow, but Daryl knew he had to keep looking around; partly because Carol would whine about it nonstop if he didn't, and partly because it wasn't like he had anything else to do. If the girl was alive, she sure had a knack for covering huge distances in no time at all. Maybe those zombies had chased her right over state lines.

Daryl was tired of trotting around the forest all day on Herschel's borrowed horse with nothing to show for it. And nobody else had helped him search, either! So maybe he woke up a bit early to get a head start on the search. And maybe people were in a bad mood after being forced to set up camp outside when Herschel's huge farmhouse was in plain sight. But still, those were no excuse. The faster they could find that girl, the faster they could get the hell out of dodge and go to that army base or whatever it was. Not that Daryl really wanted to go there, but he didn't want to stick around the farm for very long, either. There was just something about that old man Herschel that Daryl didn't quite like, even if his daughter _was_ smoking hot.

Now that he had given up his search, Daryl stood at the mouth of a well near the barn. It was hot, and he needed a drink. He lowered a bucket into the well, and for a moment, there was a sudden jerk at the rope – he must had gotten it caught on the well's stone side – but then it got loose, and he lowered it the rest of the way before bringing it back up again. As the bucket rose, he stared at the barn door; Herschel had asked them not to go inside, although nobody had pressed the man on the subject.

The bucket reached the top. Daryl laid it on the lip of the well and took a handful of water in his cupped hands, about to drink greedily, but before he could even swallow, the bitter, sour taste of decay flooded his mouth. It tasted just like that time his brother left the possum out in the sun too long before they threw it in the stew pot. "_Agh!_" he yelled, spitting it back out. "What the hell?"

Daryl peered more closely into the bucket. Then, he leaned over the edge of the well, looking down into its black depths. Something reached him from below; a whiff of something. He breathed in. There it was - not just a smell, but a stench. Paying closer attention, he tilted his head and strained his ears, catching a faint moan rising up from the well's depths. He straightened abruptly, frowning at the bucket before turning and marching back to the camp.

What the hell was this? A zombie, taking a bath in their drinking water?

Daryl's amazement grew even greater once he reached the camp. It was spread out in a copse of trees, near the parked camper, and although it was nearly noon, the only person up was Lori, poking at some bacon on a griddle over a small campfire. He noticed Rick stumbling out of his tent just as he arrived. "Hey," he said, "am I gonna get any help searchin' for Sophia today or what?"

"Oh, the girl," said Rick. "Sorry, I spent all night havin' a philosophical conversation with Lori about whether or not it's right to have a child in this world, and what's the point of goin' on, and how it's important to have hope no matter how bad things get. I dunno why she was talkin' about kids. Guess she just had Carl on her mind."

Lori coughed nervously.

"Where's everybody else?" asked Daryl.

As if in answer to his question, Glenn and Herschel's hot daughter came up on a pair of horses. He squinted at the two of them, confused; hadn't they gone to town the night before? "Where've you two been?" he asked. "Off havin' a philosophical conversation?" he added with a smirk.

"No, we were having sex!"

Maggie slapped Glenn in response to his comment.

"Did you get my, uh – supplies?" asked Lori

"Yeah, I didn't forget," said Glenn after nursing his sore cheek and jumping off the horse. He fumbled through his backpack until he found what he was looking for. "Here's your pregnancy test and your abortion pills."

Lori slapped him on his other cheek. Rick gaped in shock at his wife before dragging her by the arm back to her tent. Clearly, he had no idea his wife was pregnant. Daryl was amused at the sight – he barely even knew Glenn, but he had already seen enough of the boy to tell Lori he was probably the last person she could count on keeping a secret. He just seemed like a bit of an airhead, was all. Daryl had almost forgotten what he had come to camp to complain about, but the sight of Glenn staggering around woozily after the two vicious cheek slaps jogged his memory. "By the way, anybody here noticed the freakin' zombie in our well?"

"_What?_"

The camp's voices rose up in unison – even Shane popped his head out of a tent to ask the question.

"Yeah, down at the bottom of that well over there," he said, pointing in the direction of the barn. "I was thinkin' maybe we could lower Glenn down on a rope and get him to lasso the thing so we can bring it up outta there before it contaminates our drinkin' water. I mean, you're Asian – you know all that ninja stuff, right?"

Glenn frowned. "I'm American. I've never been to Asia."

"Yeah, but you don't know, like, karate? Zippin' down walls on ninja ropes and stuff?"

"No, I don't. Besides, I don't want to go down in some well – if I got eaten by a zombie I couldn't have sex with Maggie anymore, could I?"

Maggie slapped him again. Daryl thought about it; the boy had a point.

"Don't worry," said Maggie. "We got about five wells all over our property. We already knew there was a zombie in that one, anyway. He's like a pet to us now. We call him Tubbers."

Daryl's eyes bugged out in amazement. A pet zombie? How could these people be so stupid? Then again, according to Glenn, Asians didn't automatically know kung fu, so maybe it was best not to get too judgmental. He tore a water bottle from a pack that was laying near a cooler by the side of a tree, hoping to get the taste of sour zombie meat out of his mouth. That bacon Lori was cooking smelled mighty nice, too. Just as he was about to go find a paper plate and grab a couple slices, he saw Herschel approaching the camp from the farmhouse. Daryl smirked at the sight of Maggie shooting Glenn an angry glance. He was amazed that boy had hooked up with a hot farmer's daughter in the first place, but apparently, she didn't want daddy finding out about it.

"Back from town?" asked Herschel when he reached the camp. "What took you so long?"

"We were just-"

"We thought it was better to sleep there than come back in the dark," said Maggie, after slapping Glenn on the back with a mock-playfulness that almost sent him collapsing to the ground.

"Did you find any medical supplies for Andrea and Carl?"

The two of them looked sheepishly at each other.

"No. We forgot."

Herschel frowned. "Well, then," he said, "that is certainly bad news. We may have to go visit the high school down the highway – I believe they set up an emergency medical center there while the plague was spreading. Perhaps they still have some supplies left over. I'm sure Otis would be willing to come along, considering he was the one who shot your blonde friend, even if she tried to shoot him first. Would anyone else like to volunteer? Someone good with a gun?"

By this time, Shane had stumbled out of his tent and stood with the group listening to Herschel. Rick, who had been talking to his wife in their own tent, darted out after hearing Herschel's question and slapped his friend on the shoulder. He pointed enthusiastically at Shane. "This guy!" he said. "This guy'd like to volunteer!"

Shane tore his hat off his head and threw it on the ground. "Dammit!"

XX

The afternoon was wearing on, and Rick hadn't gotten a chance to talk to Lori much about her news, seeing as Glenn and Maggie had just gotten back to the camp when Glenn spilled it. He had also been busy volunteering his good buddy Shane for a night of zombie killing. He knew how Shane loved firing those guns; his friend could thank him later. Since then, Rick had spent much of the afternoon wandering around the woods with Daryl in a fruitless search for Sophia. They had found a church, where Rick wanted to pray to the good Lord for all the great things he'd been doing for them lately – for instance, killing only a few of them instead of all of them - but Daryl started getting antsy after he was there in the pews for an hour or so. So now they were back at the farm with nothing to show for their efforts.

"Did you find my daughter?" asked Carol, running out of the farmhouse.

"Not yet," said Daryl. "We'll keep searching tomorrow."

The two of them headed for the stables, Carol following along. "We did find a big pile of gore," he said, getting off the horse and grabbing a halter, "but we're pretty sure it was just a deer or somethin'. Hard to tell."

Carol sobbed and ran off back to the farmhouse as they finished putting their horses away. Outside, the sun was already starting to go down; Rick wondered if Shane and Otis were doing alright. They had taken the pickup truck, but he wasn't sure how far away this high school was supposed to be. Hopefully they'd be back in time to treat Andrea; she was starting to get worse, although Rick could have sworn she wanted to die at the CDC anyway. Maybe being shot with a hunting rifle had a way of changing a person's mind about dying. Just as his son crossed his mind, Rick saw Lori walking towards the farmhouse. He motioned for her to step onto the porch with him.

"Any luck?" she asked.

"No, no luck. Lori, we need to talk about this pregnancy."

Lori shied away from his touch. "What about it?"

"Well, why didn't you tell me about it? How can you leave a man in the dark about his own family?"

"I don't know what I'm going to do about it, okay? That's why. That's why I asked Glenn for those morning after pills, that's why I tried to keep it a secret from you, I just don't know what-"

"Honey," said Rick, patting Lori on the back, "you know morning after pills only work the morning after, right?"

Lori thought about it. "Oh. That's why they're called that."

"Why would you want to get rid of our baby, anyway?"

There was a long silence, broken only by the sound of people setting dishes and moving about inside the farmhouse as they got ready for an evening meal. The birds chirped in the trees around them. Lori looked up at him, tears glistening in her eyes. "Look around you," she said. "This world – this world we have now – it's no place for a child, Rick. Do you want to bring a baby into this world?"

"We got to have hope," said Rick. "There are still beautiful things in this world, honey. Me and Daryl, when we were out in the forest, we saw this pile of gore the zombies must have torn up, but it used to be a deer. It wasn't pretty, but I imagined that deer before it got torn apart, and I thought, what a beautiful sight! If only Carl could walk up to it and touch it, everything bad that's happened, well – it'd be okay, because he'd know there's still some beauty in-"

"Wait, you want Carl to touch a pile of gore?"

"No, I meant when it used to be a deer, if he could-"

Daryl poked his head out of the door.

"What the hell are you two talking about?"

Rick stared at him, his thought process interrupted.

"There ain't no beauty in this world anymore," said Daryl. "Everything's shit now. And by the way, you don't let some kid walk up to a deer and pet it like it's in a zoo or something, just like you don't let 'em go running around in the middle of the highway like they're ringin' a zombie dinner bell. Speakin' of which, dinner is ready."

Daryl popped back inside the house, leaving Rick and Lori alone on the porch. The two of them stood silently, thinking about what he had said. Maybe he was right. And now that they were on the subject of Carl, Rick couldn't help thinking about his son's future. The transformation seemed to be taking a while, but there was no doubt about it – Carl was going to change eventually. He had been bitten, and he was going to change. Rick had been trying to avoid thinking about the issue, to pretend it didn't happen, but if they didn't take care of it soon, Carl would be having _them_ for dinner.

"We need this baby, honey," he said.

"Why?"

"Because we're gonna lose the one we have."

Lori looked surprised, but then fell into thought. Rick knew it was an awkward way to put it, but hey, if they were going to lose one kid, they could replace him with another. Maybe this was God's screwed up way of trying to even things out or something. Rick knew talking for an hour to that Jesus statue was worth it.

XX

"Dammit!"

Shane threw another flare, but it was no use; either the zombies had wised up or a flare wasn't very interesting compared to a couple bags of live meat running around and making noise. They were still following close behind, and Otis was starting to slow down as his weight caught up to him. Shane felt a flash of anger go through him – how could a guy still be that fat in a zombie apocalypse, anyway? Wouldn't all the food run out? And with all the running from zombies his group had been doing n Atlanta, Shane felt like _anybody_ would have lost a few dozen pounds by now.

"Keep up!" he said, turning another corner.

"I'm tryin'! It ain't like I've been getting' much exercise lately."

"How's that? We're stuck in zombie armageddon and you ain't been doin' any running around?"

"Well, no. Runnin' around is what you do when you screw up. If you do things right, you don't go out of the house unless you have to."

Shane had to admit Otis had a point on that one.

"Where are we going, anyway?"

"They blocked off the pickup truck," said Shane. "We have to try to lead them around the school and come back the other way around."

The sound of ravenous groans drew closer behind them. Shane risked a glance back and saw shambling forms stumbling forward, gloomy in the evening light, hands outstretched like claws aching to pierce flesh. The two of them passed a chain link fence, and Shane skirted along its side, looking for an opening. Finally, he found a gate. Unfortunately, it was locked.

"This way," he said, following the fence away from the school. Otis panted as he kept close behind, but the zombies were definitely gaining on them. The fence changed direction, running parallel to a side building adjacent to the school, and Shane followed the narrow alley, shotgun at the ready. At this rate, they were going to get lost pretty quickly, unless Otis knew where they were going in the darkness. He saw a light shining to his right – it was near a door to the school building. _Must be a generator running_, he thought. The fence left off, and they headed back towards the school. Just before they were about to head for the other end, though, another group of zombies crested the lip of a hill ahead of them, moaning with hunger.

"Dammit," he said. "We gotta go back-"

The zombies behind them were closing in. One of them was closer than the others, maybe more excited about its meal, and Shane took parts of its head off with a shotgun blast from close range. He looked back at the other group of zombies approaching from the hill by the edge of the school. They were about to be surrounded. Their only option was the school door with the light shining above it, but it was surrounded by the chain link fence enclosure they had just gone around. Some kind of backyard utility area, from the looks of it. As a matter of fact, Shane thought that big lumpy thing over there was probably the generator itself.

"Any ideas?" he asked Otis. The fence's gate, even if they could open it, was now on the other side, past the zombies. Shane and Otis both backed up against the fence's cold metal, guns held at the ready as the zombies drew closer. A rotten stench filled the air, and Shane suppressed a gag.

"Hold on," said Otis.

"Whatever you're gonna do, now's the time."

Otis, for some reason, took a few steps towards the approaching zombies, and Shane couldn't help yelling out a hoarse warning, but then the man turned back and ran towards the fence as fast as he could. Shane had to step aside a bit as Otis hit the fence running. It was weak, and it collapsed easily under his weight. Shane smiled; maybe he shouldn't have criticized the man. Those extra pounds sure came in handy. "This way," said Otis, headed for the door.

They tried the handle; it was open.

The two of them darted inside and slammed the door shut just as the first of the zombies reached them. One of them actually managed to stick a hand through the frame just before Shane could close the door, but he slammed it shut so hard that it took off one of the thing's fingers, which dropped to the floor, curled up like a dead insect. Shane looked down at it, suppressing yet another gag. He could hear the zombies scratching desperately on the other side of the door. The moans were more muted, but the scratching was there.

Like insects again. Crawling just beyond the walls.

"That was close," said Otis.

"Yeah. Come on, let's check this place out."

XX

As far as dinners went, this was one of the more awkward ones Daryl had ever experienced. Herschel didn't seem to be very welcoming towards his new guests – and that was even before Glenn had accidentally brought up the sex he had with Maggie all night in town. "Pass the chicken?" asked Daryl.

Herschel looked at him in stony silence for a moment before handing over the plate. Daryl grabbed a stray leg that had miraculously survived the first ravenous attack when everyone sat down. He tore off a chunk of flesh and watched in amusement as Herschel narrowed his eyes, shooting daggers at Glenn. From what he could tell, Daryl thought maybe Glenn and Maggie were playing footsie under the table, too.

"By the way," said Herschel, "I would like to institute a rule for our guests."

"What's that?" asked Rick.

"I would prefer if no guns were used on this farm."

Daryl spat out his chunk of chicken. He watched as Rick, Lori, Dale, and Carol all nodded quickly in agreement. Was he going insane here? At least Glenn looked surprised, although he couldn't tell if that was because he had heard what Herschel said or because Maggie had just thrust a foot in his crotch or something. "Uh, _why?_" he asked.

"I don't want anybody shooting each other on my property."

So _that_ was it. Now it made a little more sense; Herschel was worried about Andrea. Daryl couldn't blame him for that, as the girl seemed to be obsessed with handling weapons even if it meant mistaking everyone for zombies and blowing them away. And it made sense that guns were no good except as a last resort, seeing as the sound of a weapon going off might attract zombies from miles around.

Daryl wondered why nobody wanted to take any of his crossbow lessons; if more people knew how to shoot a crossbow, they could steal some more from a sporting goods store eventually. Maybe he just needed to be a little more charming and persuasive. Merle was always the one with the charm, especially when it came to the ladies.

"Well," said Dale, "I could gather them all up and go store them in the barn."

"Not in the barn," said Herschel.

"Why not?"

The table looked at Herschel expectantly as he stopped in mid-bite of chicken. The dining room grew silent, other than the occasional groan coming from Carl in the bedroom nearby. Daryl listened carefully; not zombie groans yet, as far as he could tell. And they had the boy tied up, too, so that was good. Herschel finally put his fork down and cleared his throat to speak.

"There's zombies in the barn," he said.

Everyone stared at him in shock. Maggie looked like she was about to say something, but Herschel held up a hand to silence her. "That's where we keep our relatives," he continued. "I didn't want to tell you all, but there it is."

"Your relatives?" asked Daryl. "You mean like folks that are all corpsified?"

"They're not 'corpsified'. They're just somewhat living impaired."

Daryl dropped his chicken to the plate with a thud and threw up his hands. First the guns, and now this – clearly they had moved in with a family of farmhouse freaks. It was getting obvious now - the zombies were the least of their worries!

"They may be dead," said Herschel, "but they're still our relatives. They deserve respect, in this life or in this death, and there may be a cure for their little problem."

"Ain't no cure for death!" said Daryl. "We gotta kill them all before they kill us!"

Rick held up a hand, asking for everyone to calm down a little. "Well, now," he said, "let's think about this a minute. Maybe Herschel has a point here. I mean, just because the CDC couldn't find a cure yet doesn't mean there isn't one. And we're here as guests on Herschel's farm – we need to respect our host and obey his wishes. If he wants all the guns put away and a bunch of zombies living right next to us, crazy with man-hunger and separated only by some flimsy lock and chain on a wooden door, well, that's his right as a private property owner."

Herschel nodded in thanks, and the group went back to their meal. Daryl stared around him, mouth gaping, his appetite suddenly gone. There was no way everyone was going to accept this – how could they? Maybe Rick and Lori just had their son in mind, making them a little too gullible when Herschel talked about zombies being part of the family.

Either way, Daryl was getting a mighty powerful urge to get far away from the farm.

XX

Ice cream. Oodles and oodles of ice cream.

Shane could barely believe his eyes, but there it was, stacked up in the walk-in freezer in the school's kitchen. He and Otis had made the rounds through the school, finding it surprisingly empty of zombies – other than a couple they managed to lock into the principal's office. This, however, was their biggest discovery of the night. Shane licked his lips as he stared at the flavors: Bananarama, Chocolate Choo (with a picture of a train sliding wildly through a slick of chocolate on the front of the box); even his personal favorite, Blueberry Bonanza. Shane was pretty sure he hadn't eaten any ice cream since before the outbreak, and from the look Otis was giving the ice cream, it was probably the same for him.

"We gotta take this back to the farmhouse," he said.

Otis nodded in agreement.

"How we gonna carry all this stuff?"

Almost before he had asked the question, Shane noticed a plastic cooler sitting in a corner of the kitchen. Sometimes God works in mysterious ways, he thought. The two of them would have to carry the thing out of the school and back to the pickup truck if they filled it up with ice cream, but how hard could it be? All the zombies had followed them around to the back of the school. All they had to do was go through the front. "Help me out," he said as he grabbed the cooler and shoveled ice cream out of the fridge into it.

"Oh, man," said Otis, "I can't remember the last time I ate ice cream."

"Me neither."

"Maybe I can give it to Andrea to make up for my shooting her."

"I'm not sure if givin' people ice cream makes up for shootin' 'em," said Shane, "but I guess since she shot you first, we can probably keep it all to ourselves anyway. Besides, we're the ones doin' the hard work here, aren't we?"

"True. I might give her some ice cream anyway, though. She's a good lookin' girl. Wanna get on her good side, you know what I mean? Maybe I'll get lucky. This is a zombie apocalypse, after all. How picky can she be?"

Shane's good mood at finding so much ice cream suddenly turned sour. He didn't like hearing Otis talk about going after Andrea. Partly because the guy had shot her, and partly because he had been planning to make a move on her himself. She was a good looking woman, no doubt about it, and like Otis said, now that most people were undead abominations bent on consuming the living, there weren't a whole lot of hot girls just walking around everywhere. Unless you were talking about some of the dead ones that were still pretty fresh. But Shane didn't swing that way.

"Good God," he said as the two of them lugged the cooler out of the lunch room, "I had no idea ice cream could be this heavy."

"Hopefully it ain't gonna melt before we get into the pickup and back to the farm."

The school's halls were empty, dark, and gloomy, save for an emergency light shining over the door to the basement, as well as the moonlight washing faintly across the walls as it filtered in through the windows. Shane listened hard for the sound of shuffling feet and telltale groans, but there was only silence. It wasn't long before they reached the front doors. Shane peered through the glass; it was smudged and smeared, definitely in need of a little Windex, but he couldn't see anything moving outside. He propped the door open as the two of them grabbed each end of the cooler and took it outside. It was a muggy night. A warm breeze wafted over him as they headed in the direction of the pickup truck. They'd definitely have to make it fast if they didn't want the ice cream to melt.

And that was when the zombies came.

The two of them actually dropped the cooler for a moment and fired off several shots in a panic; a few of the zombies were close enough that they almost hadn't seen those grasping hands in time. They grabbed the cooler again and picked up their pace, heading down the road away from the high school as more zombies appeared, just vague hints of movement in the darkness among the trees lining the road. Apparently, they hadn't drawn all of them towards the back. Probably they'd drawn more after firing off those shots earlier before they got into the school, but everything had been a mess since they got out of that medical trailer.

"Come on," he said, "we gotta move faster!"

Otis huffed and puffed as he tried to keep up with Shane, but they weren't going fast enough. A number of zombies were out on the road now, lumbering towards them disturbingly quickly. Sometimes Shane got the impression that the hungriest ones went the fastest. Groans filled the air as they kept lugging the cooler towards the pickup; why did they have to park so far away from the school?

"Wait up," said Otis, "I can't keep up at this rate."

They stopped and fired a few more shots, taking out some of the zombies in the lead. Fortunately, there were only one or two of those things ahead of them; most of the zombies had been milling around the school, maybe remembering some recent feast they had made out of luckless people attending the medical setup before things went from bad to worse. The truck still wasn't in sight, though. And Rick had just used up the last of his shotgun bullets. He pulled out a pistol and took out another zombie coming from the side; the thing gaped in surprise as a hole opened up in its forehead before toppling forward like a Jenga tower. Rick snorted with amusement at the sight.

"After all that walkin' around inside the school," said Otis, "and then all those stale funyuns we ate in the lunch room – my stomach's starting to hurt. I can't keep up!"

Shane looked at Otis in irritation as he let the ice cream cooler slip out of his hands. He dragged it along the ground with one hand while keeping his pistol raised in the other. There were more zombies, more and more, as if they had all been waiting in the forest, watching for their dinner to come out of the school. Shane watched as Otis leaned over, hands on his knees, and realized he only had one choice. There was no way they could both get to the pickup truck at the rate they were going. The zombies were unstoppable. They needed food. They needed meat.

And Shane sure as hell wasn't going to let them take a bite.

"Sorry," he said.

"What?"

Otis screamed as Shane shot him in the leg. He fell to the ground, looking back in terror at the rapidly approaching zombie, who seemed to smell the fresh blood almost as soon as it was exposed to the air. Shane holstered his pistol and picked up the cooler with both hands, picking up the pace as he headed for the pickup. Now he could see it, just around a bend in the road.

"Why'd you shoot me?" screamed Otis. "We coulda just dropped the ice cream!"

Shane glanced back just in time to see the zombies piling around Otis in a wild frenzy.

"I didn't think of that!"

The man's screams rent the air. Shane felt bad about what he had done. Maybe he didn't want Otis making any moves on Andrea, but it wasn't like _that_ influenced his decision. It was survival, plain and simple. There were no other options.

Although now that Otis had mentioned it, he _could_ have just left the ice cream.

XX

* * *

_**Notes** - Man, I almost forgot the show was restarting yesterday. The episode was fun enough - I definitely enjoyed the last third, with the two new characters who were up to no good and ended up shot by Rick. Hopefully the second half of season 2 will speed things up. Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed this chapter._


	4. Bad Luck

**Bad Luck**

XX

Daryl was just putting on his shoes when the pickup truck came careening through the camp, almost running over a tent as it screeched to a halt. The sun had only just begun to rise, not yet lighting up the copse of trees where their group was sleeping, and the truck's headlights cut through the gloom straight into Daryl's face. He held a hand up to shield his eyes and blinked a few times as a figure stumbled out of the driver's seat. The noise was starting to wake everyone else up; Rick and Lori stumbled out of their own tent, and Glenn and Maggie crawled out of another. Daryl frowned at the sight. How'd a guy like that get a girl like that, anyway?

"What's going on?" asked Dale as he ran into the camp, woken up from where he had been sleeping in his camper parked nearby.

"I dunno," said Daryl. "Looks like Shane and Otis are back."

His eyes were getting used to the truck's headlights, and now he could see it was Shane who had gotten out. He had gone around to the back of the truck and grabbed some kind of cooler from the flat bed, which he now dropped onto the ground in the middle of the camp as everyone gathered around, wondering what was going on. Shane flung the cooler's lid open and grabbed a container of some kind from inside; he ripped off the lid, looked into it, and then threw his head back in a spasm of horror.

"Nooooooo!"

"Shane!" said Rick, racing over to his friend. "Shane, what's wrong?"

"It's melted – all melted!"

"What is it?"

"Ice cream," said Shane, flinging the container to the ground. Daryl caught the words 'Blueberry Bonanza' printed on the side as a runny blue liquid spilled out onto the grass. "It's all ruined!"

"Can't you just put it in the farmhouse?" asked Rick.

"There's no way Herschel will let us do that! You know he ain't got no room in that fridge!"

"That's right. I don't."

Everyone turned to see Herschel approaching the camp, apparently woken up by all the noise. He looked down disapprovingly at the cooler full of ice cream as Shane sat forlornly on the ground. "Where's Otis?" he asked.

"Oh, him? He died. Zombies ate him."

As the group gathered around Shane, shocked at the news and eager to hear what had happened, Daryl couldn't help feeling suspicious. Something about the way Shane had said it – and the way Dale was staring at Shane really hard, his bushy eyebrows furrowed and his eyes opened wide, which Daryl always found pretty creepy, like the old guy was on drugs or something.

"So he just couldn't run fast enough?" asked Herschel. "Why didn't you two drop the cooler of ice cream?"

Shane stuttered for a moment, at a loss for an answer. "Look," he finally said, getting tired of the third degree he was getting from everyone, "He just couldn't run fast enough, okay? And don't worry, I got your damn medical supplies in the backpack here. Why don't you go help Andrea instead of wastin' time?"

"Hey guys, what's up?"

Shane gawked at the sight of Andrea, who had appeared out of nowhere.

"You? But you were shot!"

"I'm feeling a lot better. I guess it wasn't that serious. But thanks for getting those medical supplies!"

A collective groan rose up from the group.

"So Otis died for no reason," said Herschel. A dark glower fell over his face. From the looks of it, he was getting tired of his new guests. Daryl didn't think that was a bad thing, really – the sooner they got away from this place, the better, especially seeing as the man seemed to think zombies were best handled with a friendly conversation instead of weapons.

"By the way," said Andrea, "I was hoping Shane could give me a little practice with the guns. I wouldn't want to almost shoot Otis again."

"You don't have to worry about that," said Glenn cheerfully. "Otis is dead!"

Herschel threw his hands up in exasperation. "I thought I said no weapons on my farm!"

From what Daryl could remember, Herschel had only been talking about guns; but just to be safe, he edged away from the camp and went off towards the stables before the man could notice the crossbow hanging from his back. Herschel probably wouldn't mind if he borrowed one of the horses. Dawn was breaking, and it was time to look for Sophia again – judging by the big argument everyone was having at the camp, nobody was going to help him. They'd just slow him down, anyway.

XX

The feel of her soft skin, the rustle of her clothes as he snaked an arm around hers, steadying the gun in her hand; it was almost too much to ignore. Shane hadn't been this close to a woman since Lori started going all queen bitch on him just because of his white lie about Rick. He was getting annoyed at Andrea's poor aim, but that was probably just impatience on his part, coupled with the fact that he'd rather be doing something besides target practice.

"Aim higher," he said. "Let me go move the log, it stopped swinging-"

Andrea fired the pistol, barely missing Shane's head as he approached the swinging log they were using for target practice. "Dammit, woman!" he yelled. "Wait 'till I get out of the way!"

"Sorry!"

Shane hurried back to a position well behind Andrea after giving the log a strong heave. Andrea fired off several shots wildly, causing him to let out of a huff of frustration. He was having a lot of women troubles lately. Otis had been right about Andrea being a juicy piece of blonde ass, but Shane got the feeling she had a thing for Dale, as creepy as that was. She'd been angry at the old man for saving her life, but everybody knew anger in women was just repressed sexual desire.

It was the same reason Lori was so angry at him lately. _Lori_, he thought with a grimace. Like he could have known Rick was still alive when he ran out of the hospital. The man was as good as dead, really – and all Shane was trying to do was comfort Lori and emotionally bond with her over her loss. And what could be more emotionally bonding than really quiet sex in a tent while you hope to God the kid sleeping three feet away from you doesn't wake up?

"I'm out of bullets," said Andrea.

"That's because you shot 'em all into the air."

Andrea looked crestfallen, and Shane felt a flash of sympathy as he reached for his own gun. "You gotta _feel_ it," he told her, taking aim at the log. "In a life or death situation, you can't panic, you can't hold back – you have to kill the other guy before he kills you, or bites you or whatever. If that guy's gonna steal the girl you wanna sleep with, if he's gonna slow you down so the ice cream melts before you can get back to camp, well, you can't think about it – it's him or you! You just gotta fire!" he yelled, shooting the log. He fired again, and again. "You gotta kill! Kill him!"

He emptied his slip into the log before throwing the pistol itself and letting out a hoarse scream. The two of them stood silently for a moment as the log's swinging died down. Andrea gave him a worried look.

"What was that about ice cream?"

"What? Ice cream? Nothin', nothin' at all. Hey, all this shooting's got me in kind of a mood – you interested in finding some spot in the bushes and lettin' off some steam?"

Andrea shook her head, and Shane cursed inwardly. Too quick. Should have turned on that patented Shane charm a little more. "Thanks for the offer," said Andrea, "but, uh – maybe when you're acting a little less crazy."

She turned to leave and ran into Dale, who was standing under a nearby tree. Shane wondered how long he had been there, and he caught Andrea flashing Dale a glare as she passed by. "Can't you forgive me for saving your life yet?" asked Dale.

"No! How _dare_ you care about me!"

Andrea was about to storm off towards the farm when she ran straight into a pack of zombies.

Shane and Dale gasped in surprise and drew back impulsively at the sight of the zombies falling on Andrea like a horde of starving hobos. Where had they come from? He realized he and Andrea must not have heard the telltale groans and growls while they were shooting randomly into the woods and yelling about stuff.

Shane felt a blinding bolt of fury go through him. He had totally been getting to her; another day or two of turning on the charm and Andrea would have been in bed with him, no doubt about it. But, no, of course not. Just as soon as something started going his way, the zombies had to come and take it from him. He drew his weapon in a rage, clicking several times before he realized the clip was empty. "Dammit!" he screamed, throwing the pistol at one of the zombies. It bounced off the zombie's head, catching its attention. It looked up, bloody mouth hanging open.

"Watch out, Shane!"

Dale pushed him aside and drew a pump-action shotgun out from under his shirt. He blew the zombie's head clean off, then took aim at the three others who were busy tearing Andrea's remains apart. They barely hide time to realize their dinner was being interrupted before Dale turned their faces into a fine red mist. The sound of the shotgun blasts reverberated through the forest as the zombie's corpses lay splayed in the undergrowth. Dale put the shotgun back under his shirt. Andrea lay on the ground, where she had been pinned by the group of zombies. They were about to take a look at her corpse when – to their amazement – she got up.

"Wow," she said. "Looks like none of them broke the skin!"

Shane stared at the zombie corpses in amazement. "Maybe they were all real old. You sure you're okay?"

Andrea nodded. The two of them stood close to each other, and Shane felt a thrill of sexual tension. There was just something about almost getting eaten alive by walking corpses that made his blood start running. All he had to do was keep killing zombies around her, and she'd ignore Dale and stick to him!

"So where'd you get that shotgun from?" asked Shane.

"Personal collection."

"Seems like you know how to handle your weapons."

Dale nodded. "Vietnam. And also squirrels. Me and the wife had a lot of rabid squirrels at our old home."

The three of them stood silently for a moment. Then, Dale stared at the bullet-riddled target practice log handing from a tree branch. He raised an eyebrow and gave Shane which was enough to let him know he had heard everything. Shane sighed; Dale had been giving him a lot of looks lately, ever since the man had caught him aiming his rifle at Rick out the woods that one time. "Seems like you know how to handle your weapons, too," he said. "Not the kind of person who aims at something without meaning to fire."

"Look, I know what you're talkin' about, Dale. That wasn't what it-"

"I know who you are. I know what kind of person you are. You don't fool me, Shane – I've got my eye on you. You'd better keep an eye on him too, Andrea. He's a danger to the group."

"I was just aiming at his back in case a zombie popped up behind him, that's all!"

Dale widened his eyes at Shane's protest. From what Shane had seen, that seemed to be the man's default reaction to everything. "Shane's done a lot for the group," said Andrea. "Sure, maybe he's boiling with barely contained frustration at whatever weird three-way situation he's in with Rick and Lori, but I'm sure he won't go crazy and kill people in a tragic standoff!"

"Thanks, Andrea."

"Not a problem."

Shane pointed to the bag he noticed slung over Dale's back. He had the feeling he knew why Dale had come out to bother them, but he'd ask anyway. "What'd you come out here for?"

"I'm here to collect all the guns," said Dale. "Herschel doesn't want any around the farmhouse."

"What about your gun?"

"Oh, I'm going to hide mine, too."

"After we just killed those zombies, you don't see how useful guns are?"

"It was your firing that caught their attention in the first place."

"It was Andrea's hot meaty body that caught their attention!"

Dale ignored him, stepping forward with a hand outstretched. "If you don't mind-"

Shane took a step back, pocketing his pistol.

"You can have this when you pry it from my cold, dead hands."

Dale gave another wide-eyed look and pointed from his eyes to Shane's face to indicate he'd be keeping an eye out, and then headed off through the woods. Shane grumbled and looked down at his pistol as the man left. No bullets left, anyway; he had fired them all in that fit of anger. Why was everybody on his back lately? Lori, just because he forgot to mention that whole Rick-maybe-being-alive thing; Dale, just because he had thought about murdering Rick when his friend wasn't looking. So maybe Shane wasn't perfect. Maybe he'd let a man die for ice cream. It was a freaking zombie apocalypse! Didn't these people understand ice cream wasn't gonna be around forever?

Things were definitely looking like he was the odd man out. The black sheep. And with Dale and Rick listening to that crazy old man about stowing away all the guns and being nice to the zombies, Shane began to wonder if it was about time to make a move. At least Andrea seemed to be on his side. Maybe he had been wrong about the weird sexual tension between her and Dale. Maybe it was just his jealousy getting the better of him.

XX

Daryl was definitely feeling like the odd man out. The black sheep. Shane had let somebody die for a cooler of ice cream, or at least it looked that way; Rick and Lori were spending all their time arguing about abortions and zombie kids a few feet away from the camp where they thought no one could hear them; Carol spent all her time in the farmhouse dabbing her eyes and worrying about her kid instead of learning to ride a horse and helping him out with the search; Glenn and Maggie were usually screwing in the bushes; and even Dale and Andrea had some kind of bizarre February-December sexual tension between them. Daryl was amazed to find himself actually missing T-Dog, even though he barely knew the guy. Maybe T-Dog seemed more reasonable because he never talked much.

And out of everyone in the group, he was the only one who knew his way around the woods, despite the fact that they seemed to be spending every second of the day in and around the forest. If this was a TV show, Daryl thought, _damn_ would it be boring! Since he was the only person who could handle the forest, that meant he'd be keeping everyone alive if something went wrong and they had to run like they did on the highway – and if Herschel kicked them out, which was looking more likely by the minute with his crazy rules, that might not be a long time coming. Daryl was tired of being the reasonable one, of holding up the weight. Back when Merle had been around, he usually followed along with his brother's ideas.

"Sophia!" he called out. "Sophia, where you hidin', girl?"

He was pretty sure there was a better chance of attracting a zombie than Sophia, but it was the only way to get her attention if she was hiding somewhere. And that was a big 'if'. He supposed that was why he was in a bad mood; most of the people around camp annoyed him, so he knew he should be enjoying this time alone, but he felt sorry for Carol. He knew the truth about her daughter. If Sophia was still alive, she would have shown up by now, or at least Daryl would have found her already. She couldn't have gone that far, and Daryl was an excellent tracker. He could find anything, see any clue; nothing in the forest could take him by surprise-

And that was when he smacked face-first into a hornet's nest.

"_Dammit!_"

Daryl jerked wildly to the side, almost falling off his horse as the hornets began to swarm around him. He swatted wildly for a moment before regaining his control and gripping the reigns tightly, but the sudden appearance of all the angry bees had also spooked the horse, which reared up on its hind legs, smacking Daryl's head into a tree branch. He swore loudly before toppling off the horse and hitting the ground with a painful thud. The sound of the horse racing off through the forest reached his ears. Daryl turned over, groaning-

And that was when the rattlesnake on the ground in front of him struck.

"What the – _aargh!_"

Daryl got up and flailed around as the rattlesnake clung to his arm. It let its fangs loose and flew off into the forest after he gave his arm a particularly powerful flail; unfortunately, it was also enough to set him off balance. He stumbled a few feet, tripped on an exposed tree root, and went rolling down a hillside, hitting a number of rocks and tree branches on the way down. It felt like every inch of his body was being pummeled. After what seemed like forever, the hill finally led to a rocky stream, which he hit with a loud splash.

There was a painful, stabbing feeling in his back, and Daryl realized one of his crossbow bolts had cut into him. He was just about to get up when he saw something floating downstream towards him; a stray log. Before he could move, the log smacked right in the middle of his forehead with a loud thunk. Daryl saw stars exploding, and his vision grew hazy as the log floated off past him.

Today was not his lucky day. He lay in the running water for a moment, gasping for breath. The sun beat down on him from a break in the trees above. To his side was the rocky hill down which he had just rolled. He tried to drag himself towards it, but crossbow bolt sent a shooting pain through his back. He barely managed to get to the stream's bank before he settled down on his side and lost consciousness.

XX

"Wake up, fool."

The voice came to him faintly, from a great distance. Daryl fluttered his eyes and groaned, lurching on the sandy bank of the stream and blinking in pain as bright sunlight streamed in. He saw the vague outline of the hill nearby, tree branches swaying in the breeze – and someone standing over him. As he regained consciousness, the figure took form.

Daryl's eyes opened wide with shock. It was Merle.

"You were touch an' go there for a while, little brother."

"Merle? You're alive!"

"Most of me," said Merle with a laugh, holding up his stump of an arm. "Lost a little bit along the way."

"Where you – how'd you find me?"

"Not that hard, with you howlin' like a little girl and fallin' down that hillside. Never thought I'd see you layin' in some stream and dyin' because you were stupid enough to shack up with a group of morons."

"How did you know-"

"I been watchin' you," said Merle. "I been around for a while, little brother. I'm disappointed in you. Hangin' out with some cop, with a black boy and some yellow boy like they was your best friends-"

"Come on, Merle," said Daryl. He tried to push himself up on his elbows, but the pain in his back was still too great. Still, he could feel that the arrow was gone; Merle must have taken it out. "They ain't that bad. Yeah, maybe we wouldn't be around people like that before, but it's a zombie apocalypse, you know? You gotta meet some new people seeing as there ain't many left that'll talk to you instead of bite your face off."

Merle shook his head. "You're gettin' soft, Daryl."

"Am not."

"What are you doin' layin' there on the ground, then?"

Daryl forced himself up. He'd always been under his brother's shadow, and right now was no different. Literally, since Merle was standing there and blocking all the sunlight. All this time, when he'd been fleeing Atlanta with the group, when they had to leave his brother behind, he had thought he missed Merle, that things would be better with him around. But now Daryl wasn't so sure. To be honest, his brother was kind of a jerk.

"I'll show you," he said.

"Yeah, right. I bet you can't even get up halfway-"

Daryl was already up the hill. Now that he looked around, it was a lot smaller than he had expected. Must have just been all those rocks he hit on the way down.

"Well, that was no fun," said Merle, who took a few steps up and joined him at the top.

Daryl turned to gloat, but noticed his brother was no longer there. He frowned and looked over the side of the small hill; the stream was empty. His brother was nowhere to be seen, until he felt a painful chewing feeling on his foot, and looked down to find Merle gnawing wildly at his shoe. His brother gave him a hard time sometimes, but chewing on his foot? That was a new one. "What the hell are you doin'?" he asked.

"Sibling rivalry, grrr!"

Daryl began to feel woozy as the light in the forest twisted and swirled around him. Merle faded away, and in a haze of confusion, he blinked several times; all of a sudden, he was looking up at the sky. He felt running water beneath him. Was he back at the stream again? He must have dreamed the whole episode with his brother. Daryl looked around unsteadily, wondering what was going on.

It took several moments before he noticed the zombie gnawing at his foot.

He jumped in shock, kicking at the zombie and scrambling back up the shore, but it was too late – his shoe was torn open and he could see one of his toes in the zombie's mouth. And it was his big toe, too. That was the best one! Several more of the undead were shuffling toward him, mere feet away. Before they could reach him, he pulled the crossbow from where it had fallen off his back and lodged itself in the stream, loading it with a bolt and firing it off into the closest zombie's face. Two others were on him before he could fire again, and Daryl screamed as one bit into his shoulder. The other clawed at his face, and he went down into the stream in a splash of water. They smothered him, their hands tearing at his flesh, the water roiling red with his blood-

And then he woke up again.

Daryl blinked as he looked up at the tree line for the third time that afternoon. He looked around; no zombies. At least he had been dreaming his own death instead of actually being eaten. Something about the dream with his brother had been unsettling, too, like he wasn't as happy to see Merle as he had expected, even if it was only in his mind. Although it had been a pretty convincing hallucination. And now that he looked, he could see a bloody crossbow bolt on the sandy shore beside him. He reached back and felt a bandage applied to his back wound. Strange; had he put it on without remembering?

As Daryl got up and looked around, he saw the hill where he had fallen from up above. Now _that_ was disappointing. Instead of the small hill in his dream, it was definitely a few dozen feet up a steep, rocky slope. And bandage or no bandage, Daryl was feeling like he could barely stay on his feet. _This'll be interesting_, he thought as he took his first foothold and began to claw his way up. But Merle was a damned fool if he thought Daryl Dixon was getting soft.

Thanks to his unbelievable tracking skills, Daryl knew that it was well into the afternoon now, seeing as the sun had gone down a little since he first went out to look for Sophia. Let those fools over in the camp figure out something like _that_, he thought to himself.

Unfortunately, the horse was nowhere to be found, so he had to walk his way back to the farmhouse. Daryl trudged in the sweltering heat for a few minutes when, in a stroke of luck, he suddenly broke through the trees and stepped into an open field, the barn and farm house in full sight ahead of him, along with the camp where the rest of his group was staying. He must have been already close to home before he smacked into that bee's nest. Daryl noticed several figures in the distance, out by the parked camper.

One of them, it looked like Andrea, was standing on top of the camper with something in her hands. He waved to get her attention. "Hey, I'm back! I couldn't find-"

The bullet smacked into the side of his head, sending him toppling to the ground. He lay back in the grass and looked at the sky once again. This was _really_ getting old.

XX

"Oh my God! I'm so sorry!"

Andrea raced to Daryl's prone body in the grass and dropped to the ground, laying the rifle she had taken from Rick by his side. Fortunately, it looked like he was only dazed, and while the bullet had hit him in the side of his head, it was only a slight graze. Daryl groaned as he came to. "What the hell was that?" he asked.

"I thought you were a zombie."

"I was wavin' at you!"

"Who says zombie's can't wave?"

Daryl had no answer to that. Rick and Dale rushed up beside Andrea to see if he was alright. "I told you to wait until we checked him out!" said Rick. "What are you doin', firing off like that?"

"I had target practice with Shane earlier," she said. "I'm an expert marksman now. I hit him in the head, didn't I?"

Daryl suddenly let out a scream of pain and rolled over. Andrea and the others leaped back at the sight of a rattlesnake attached to his back, and Rick flung it away with a swipe from the butt of his rifle. "Not again!" said Daryl. "Snakes everywhere – this is the day from hell!"

"Let's get you inside," said Andrea. "We gotta get you some medical attention. We can use some of the supplies we were going to give to Carl – he doesn't need those anyway, he's going to turn into a zombie soon. Er, no offense, Rick."

"None taken!"

Andrea and Rick helped Daryl up as they went off towards the farmhouse. In their hurry to help, neither one of them noticed Dale grabbing Rick's rifle from the ground and heading off in another direction: towards the barn.

XX

Now that he had Rick's rifle, pretty much all of the group's weapons were in Dale's hands. The only person left with a weapon that he knew of was Shane with that pistol, but Dale knew better than to take that from him. Unfortunately, it kind of undermined the whole point of getting the weapons, seeing as Shane was the one who seemed to want to kill people. The way he had aimed at Rick, and the way he had been so evasive when he was talking about Otis dying. Dale definitely didn't trust the man; he'd have to get that pistol while Shane was sleeping, maybe.

Dale tried to look into the barn through the wooden slats, but he couldn't see anything inside. Too dark. He strained his ears, listening for the sounds of telltale moans, but he couldn't hear anything either. Maybe the zombies didn't really get excited until they knew prey was nearby. Ever since Herschel had told them he had family members locked up and zombified in the barn, Dale had been skeptical. Could a man really be that crazy? It seemed to him like it was a lie, a distraction. Something else was in the barn. But what?

The barn's front door was closed and padlocked, so Dale had to go around and find an alternate entrance. Eventually he managed to climb a ladder with the bag of weapons tied over his back, reaching an open window that led inside the barn. He stepped through onto some kind of hay loft. The afternoon sunlight streamed in behind him, but it was still dark inside the barn itself. He couldn't see anything below him, at first, and as he leaned over the side, he had to adjust his eyes to get used to the shadows. He looked closer. No, there was something there alright. He could see vague shapes in the darkness. But what was-

Dale gasped as the shapes took form.

And then he fell down from the hay loft, straight into the barn.


	5. What's in the Barn

**What's in the Barn**

XX

If every day was going to be like this, Daryl didn't think he'd last very long.

The last rays of sunlight were streaming through the bedroom window as Daryl sat in a rocking chair, still recuperating from his numerous near-death experiences. Herschel had patched him up – although not before chewing him out over taking horses without his permission. Like the man needed the horses for anything else. About all they were good for was searching for Sophia and getting eaten by zombies, or – in some cases, apparently – leading Daryl right into a beehive before flinging him down onto a rattlesnake.

He was in the same bedroom where Carl was laying in bed, and the boy's zombie infection getting worse. As far as Daryl could see, the boy was going to keel over and get back up as a brand new member of the undead any minute now. The way his forehead was glistening with sweat, the way he occasionally let out a faint groan... Daryl was there to keep an eye on him since Lori had gone off for a moment, and while he didn't mind the job, seeing as he needed to rest anyway, he hoped Lori knew he'd put a crossbow through her kid's forehead if Carl so much as looked at him the wrong way.

"What's wrong?" asked Carl, noticing Daryl staring at him.

"Nothin', kid. Just wondering when you're gonna eat the rest of us."

"As soon as you aren't looking."

Daryl's hand edged towards the crossbow propped against the wall beside his rocking chair.

"Just kidding!"

Daryl eyed him for a moment before laughing. At least the kid had a sense of humor about being a dead boy walking. The two of them sat in silence for a while as Daryl listened to the faint sounds of people milling around outside. Soon it would be evening: dinner time. And he got the feeling that with all the tension going on in camp lately, it might get ugly. Not only that, but apparently Dale had gone missing, and nobody could find him. Which meant he'd be out searching for _two_ people just as soon as he started feeling better.

"So you think I'm going to turn into a zombie?" asked Carl.

Daryl looked sadly at the boy. He didn't want to answer.

"Don't worry. I know what's going to happen. I guess it's just hard to think about it, you know? To think about being dead, and then coming back and walking around with nothing on your mind except eating people. It's like I can't believe it's gonna happen, even though I know it will."

The kid seemed smart for his age. Daryl felt bad for him, but then, maybe he was luckier than the rest of them. Maybe there wasn't anything else they could hope for in this world. He caught himself getting melodramatic and rolled his eyes; if he kept up with that kind of attitude, he'd turn into Lori, or Andrea before she had her miraculous change of mind about killing herself right after Otis shot her. But it was too bad he couldn't do anything to save Carl. He had been trying to save Sophia, and even _that_ had gone nowhere.

"I'm just glad my parents are having another kid," said Carl. "Although I wish my mom would hurry up and choose between Shane and dad."

"They're both after her, huh?" Daryl had gotten that impression.

"Yep. Shane's crazier, but dad's stupider. It's a tough call."

Any further conversation was cut off by the sound of a motor gunning and tires screeching outside. Daryl frowned as he listened; nobody had gone out anywhere, at least not that he knew of. Another moment passed and he heard Rick let out a shout of surprise. He grabbed his crossbow and darted up from the chair, but now that he thought about it, Rick's noise had been more of a happy whoop. It sounded like he had recognized someone. "Your mom'll be back in a minute," said Daryl, heading out of the room and onto the front porch. Outside, Rick was yelling at someone who had just gotten out of a truck that Daryl didn't recognize.

"I can't believe it! You know how long I waited for you?"

It was a black man he didn't recognize, but he realized it must have been that guy Rick was always talking about, Morgan. The man's son came out of the passenger side, confirming Daryl's suspicions as he watched them all laughing and hugging. He felt a flash of suspicion at the sight of black people, especially ones he didn't recognize. That was normal, something he had always felt; he and Merle had never been a fan of them.

But all of a sudden Merle's face came back in his mind's eye, standing over him as he lay bleeding in that stream. Merle's laughter, his dismissal of Daryl's efforts at survival. And he remembered T-Dog, or whatever his name was, getting eaten by zombies. Something inside Daryl twisted a little. He made a decision; things were different now. Every day since this zombie apocalypse began, he had come that much closer to realizing he wasn't the same person he used to be. He approached the newcomers and held out a hand. "Daryl Dixon," he said.

The man shook his hand with a friendly smile.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Morgan, and this here's my son, Duane."

"I already told them all about you two," said Rick. "Great to see you again! We've all been hidin' out here at this farm house for a few days now – this guy Herschel owns it, I'll introduce you to him in a minute. I'm sure he'll be fine with a couple of new faces-"

"Who _are_ these people?"

All of them turned to see Herschel on the porch, narrowing his eyes warily at the newcomers.

"Hey, Herschel," said Rick, "these are my friends-"

"We don't need any more people here!" he said angrily. "First you all get Otis killed, then you steal my best horse so he goes runnin' off into the woods, then you eat all the food out of my fridge. And I told you all no guns on the farm!"

"Dale got rid of the guns!" Rick protested.

"Did he? I saw Andrea and Shane engaging in a little target practice this morning, and if I am not mistaken, Andrea nearly shot your friend Daryl just a couple of hours ago. Am I not correct?"

Daryl coughed nervously. "Yeah, that's about right."

Rick looked embarrassed, but he pressed his point. "Well, he got rid of _most_ of the guns. I dunno where he's got them stashed – I haven't seen him in a while."

Herschel stepped off the porch and looked wildly across the field, eyes wide with alarm.

"He didn't go to the barn, did he?"

Rick shrugged.

"You can't even keep track of your people! That's it – everyone has to leave this place by morning!"

Rick tried to protest, but Herschel stormed back inside the farmhouse and slammed the door before anyone could reply. He looked at his newly arrived friends apologetically. Daryl didn't mind the ultimatum at all. The sooner they were all headed out, the better. The only thing holding them back, as far as he could tell, was Sophia.

XX

"You're killing us! You're killing us!"

Rick pounded on the table and shot up from his chair in a frenzy as Herschel sat impassively, waiting for his outburst to be over. He had just announced the news to the rest of the group. Shane didn't mind the ultimatum at all – as far as he was concerned, this place was a deathtrap. Why did Rick want to hang out at a farm run by a guy who thought the best plan of action in a zombie apocalypse was to stow away all your guns and make friends with the corpses trying to tear your flesh off? This wasn't the Rick he remembered from their days on the force. This wasn't the cool, calm, collected deputy he had been friends with. No, something about his friend had changed: maybe it was the pressure of their situation, maybe it was the fact that his kid was gonna be one of the living dead at any moment, but Rick was unhinged.

"That is my decision," said Herschel, "and it's final."

"We can work with you! We already put away most of the weapons except Shane's sidearm, and we can learn to live with the zombies – it'll just take a little while. We're just used to them biting us and eating our flesh, but if you want to eat dinner with them and sit on the porch swing to watch the sun go down with them, well, we're willin' to compromise. You just can't throw us back out there. You don't know what it's _like_ out there."

"But does your group agree with you?" asked Herschel. "I don't think Daryl does. And what about Shane?"

Rick turned to Shane, who looked away uncomfortably as his friend adopted a pleading look.

"Come on, Shane," he said, "what do you think?"

"This whole thing's crazy."

"How can I trust you all if you can't even work together as a group?" asked Herschel.

"You just gotta give us a chance-"

"If Shane gives up his sidearm, that's a start."

Shane's hand slipped down to his side as he shot Herschel a suspicious glance. "Over my dead body."

"You see," said Herschel, "if you all can't accept my rules, you can't live on this farm."

Shane was tired of the ridiculous conversation. He stormed out of the kitchen, knocking over a chair as he left. Herschel was nothing but trouble. Here they were, arguing about how they could stay at the farm house, when the man had a whole passel of relatives stowed in his barn, just waiting to break out and eat everyone alive. It was like the whole group had gone crazy! Or at least everyone seemed to follow Rick's lead, no matter how crazy it was, instead of looking to him as a leader. And all just because a couple people suspected him of maybe killing Otis. He had no choice! And if they wanted to talk about monsters, what about Herschel? The man hadn't let him put the ice cream in the freezer, so it had all melted. Shane hadn't seen such a travesty against nature since the dead began to rise.

As he stepped out past the porch and began to walk across the yard, Shane realized he knew what to do. Dale had taken all the guns from the group and hidden them somewhere – Shane had tried to follow him earlier, but the man was surprisingly elusive and turned off into the forest at some point, at which point Shane lost his trail. But he had missed one gun, as Herschel and Rick both knew. Shane still had his sidearm.

And as he saw the barn across the field, draped in the descending blanket of evening darkness, he knew how to solve the problem. If Herschel thought his relatives were still alive, then it wasn't nice to keep them all locked up like that. And if Herschel didn't like them heading for his farm house and his living family, well, the solution was right there in Shane's holster.

He crossed the field, heading towards the barn. He was halfway there when a horse ran by out of nowhere, rearing up on its hind legs and almost braining Shane before it took off in the other direction. He fell over, cursed, and got back up; probably the one Daryl had lost in the forest when he had his little accident. He knew Daryl agreed with him about this stupid farm. Maybe the two of them could join up and convince the group that Rick and Herschel were wrong. He worried about Lori, though – when it came down to it, which of them would she choose? Would she really give up everything to stay with Rick?

The barn door was padlocked, but Shane skirted around the side as he peered through the slats. The sky was darkening, which didn't help his seeing anything, but it looked like there was something in there. He couldn't tell what it was, but he could swear he caught a flash of movement just inside. There was a rustling sound, too. Around the side of the barn he managed to climb up to a loft window, creeping inside and pausing a moment to let his eyes get adjusted to the dark interior. He crouched on a hay loft ledge; below him lay the rest of the barn. As he got used to the darkness, he could make out figures standing all over the place. A shiver went down his spine. Herschel's relatives, all standing still, probably smelling his-

Wait a minute. Shane looked a little closer. Those weren't zombies.

They were _plants_.

"What are you doing in here?"

Shane caught the voice from across the barn. Dale emerged from the darkness between several of the plants. So _this_ was where the old man had gone. "I could ask you that myself," said Shane.

"I lost track of time," said Dale.

The man had something in his hand. Shane realized what it was: a cigarette. This whole situation was strange. He looked at the plants again, and suddenly realized they were marijuana plants. The whole barn was a marijuana growing facility! Dale reached over and flipped a switch on a wall, turning on growing lights hanging from the barn's roof. Shane blinked at the sudden bright flood of light, looking around as his suspicions were confirmed. He couldn't help laughing. So that was why Herschel didn't want them coming around to the barn. He was worried about his stash!

As Shane clambered down from a ladder and hit the dirt floor, he noticed Dale shifting to the side. Trying to protect something from view. Down on the floor beside him was a big black duffel bag: the weapons. Shane took a step closer, and Dale dropped his doobie before dropping to the ground and grabbing something from among the plants. Shane drew his pistol in a flash as Dale came back up with a shotgun. The man froze, seeing Shane's gun pointed at him; he held the shotgun in one hand, but couldn't fire it from his position yet. Shane had him. The two of them stood tensely, each waiting for the other to make a move.

"Now, let's not get hasty," said Shane. "I think you've been smokin' it up a little too much."

"Don't be ridiculous," said Dale. "Smoking it up was all my wife and I did in the camper before things turned to shit. Besides shooting rabid squirrels, I mean. And I know why you're here – for the weapons. Well, you're not getting them."

"Why are you doing what Herschel wants? You know the man's crazy. Even if he doesn't have any relatives in here, he thinks we shouldn't be shootin' the zombies. You really wanna follow _his_ orders?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Hiding all the guns – that's just gonna get us all killed."

"I don't care about Herschel," laughed Dale. "I'm hiding all the guns from you! _You're_ the one who's going to get us all killed, Shane. I know what kind of man you are. I saw you aiming at Rick out there in the woods, and I know you killed Otis. You're a bad liar."

"Hiding the guns from me?" laughed Shane, waving his pistol.

"Okay, so I forgot one."

The two of them were on either side of the barn, but it wasn't a very big barn. A firefight could get ugly, fast. There were some hay bales and pieces of discarded equipment to his right; Shane could duck behind them if Dale got too itchy with his trigger finger. But as he thought about it, maybe there was no point avoiding it. He could see Dale's red eyes, the shotgun wavering as he clutched it in one hand. He could take the man down right now. Then, after a last ditch plea for Lori to join him, they'd get the hell out of dodge and find that army base. Anything was better than staying here.

Shane smirked, took aim, and fired.

XX

Daryl stepped outside the farm house, wanting to get a little air and escape from all the arguing going on inside. Rick was now following Herschel around from room to room, telling the old man over and over how he didn't know what things were like out there. Not only that but Carl had come into the kitchen like he was in a daze, asking for fresh brains before someone led him back into the bedroom. That had been very concerning to everyone. Outside, sitting on the porch steps, Daryl found Rick's black friend from Atlanta sitting with his son. The father looked back at him and nodded.

"Got tired of all the commotion," explained Daryl.

"Yeah, us too. Have a seat."

Daryl sat down beside them. "Morgan and Dwayne, right?"

The two of them nodded. "Things always like this?" asked Morgan. "Me and my son have been tryin' to get someplace safe for a long time now, but I get the feeling this place ain't much of an improvement."

"You're probably right."

"I heard they got a bunch of zombie relatives in that barn over there?"

Daryl nodded, looking at the barn, a black silhouette against the deep blue evening sky. He sat silently with Morgan and his son, listening to the faint sounds of arguing coming from inside. If the two of them had been searching for Rick, getting away from the city, maybe they had been expecting to find something better than this. Daryl got the feeling there wasn't anything better out there. Not on some secluded farm, and certainly not at an army base. The only place to be in this world was on the move.

Daryl's philosophizing was cut off by the sound of an engine revving in the distance. Shane had disappeared earlier; maybe he had taken the pickup and gone somewhere. But no, there was the pickup truck, right over there. A flash of headlights came through the trees out past the farm house's front yard, but as it drew closer, Daryl could see it was only one headlight. A motorcycle. Had someone taken his bike out for a ride? Morgan and Duane watched along with him as a motorcycle came into view, but it wasn't his. It pulled up to the front of the house and two figures stepped off: a man and a little girl. Daryl stood up abruptly as the figure came in view of the porch lights, holding the little girl in his grasp. He recognized both of them.

It was Merle. And he was with Sophia.

"Well, well, if it isn't my little brother, hangin' out with a couple of darkies!"

Merle shot Morgan a threatening smile as Morgan stood up and moved in front of his son. The sight of his brother was one of the strangest things Daryl had ever experienced. He had been angry and bitter at his brother's loss in Atlanta, hostile towards T-Dog for leaving him up there on that roof, and yet his short time with the group had set something off inside of him. Like a metamorpho – a meta – whatever it was butterflies did. Daryl had been doing that. Maybe it wasn't just them, but this apocalypse – it was putting things in perspective, somehow. Giving him a new perspective on what being human meant. He would have expected joy, relief, happiness on seeing Merle back alive, and yet here his older brother was. And Daryl felt afraid.

"Was I-" he said hesitantly, "-was I hallucinatin' when I saw you in the forest earlier?"

Merle laughed. "'Course not. I bandaged you up, didn't I?"

"Then why'd you leave again?"

"I've been watchin' you. I've been watchin' you with this group of fools you're hangin' out with, little brother, and I think you've gone soft. I dunno if I trust you anymore. Not after you let 'em do _this_ to me," he said, holding up his stump of a hand. "You know how hard it is to ride a damn motorcycle with one hand, little brother?"

"Didn't even know it was possible," said Daryl.

Sophia had been smiling when she approached the porch with Merle, but now she began to cry. "What's going on?" she asked. "I thought you were going to bring me back to my mom."

"Maybe," said Merle. "Or maybe not. Depends on if I get what I want."

He grabbed Sophia with his one good hand, holding her by her hair as she let out a squeal. "Where's that black boy that lost me my hand?" he yelled. "You bring him out here, Daryl. After I take care of him, you and me are gettin' the hell out of here. You don't belong with these people."

"They're not all bad," said Daryl. "Yeah, some of them are idiots, but-"

"I said bring that black boy out here! Where are you?" he shouted at the farm house. By this time, people began to come out of the front door and stand on the porch to see what all the commotion was. Carol came out and let out a cry when she saw her daughter. Sophia tried to run forward, but Merle jerked her back by the hair. "I want that boy out here to pay for what he did, or else I'm shootin' this little girl!"

Something snapped in Daryl. Brother or no brother, he had been searching for that little girl day and night. He had gotten bitten by rattlesnakes, stung by bees, and stabbed with his own crossbow bolts for that girl. And his brother was acting crazier than Rick and Shane; even with a missing hand, by now he should have had some time to calm down. Maybe he was tripping on some of that blue stuff they got from Heisenberg. He unslung the crossbow from his back – where he always kept it, even when he was eating dinner – and aimed it at his brother.

"What the hell is this?" snapped Merle.

"Let her go."

"You try anything and I shoot her."

"How are you gonna shoot her? You're holding on to her with your one good hand."

Merle snarled angrily, but then looked at Sophia and down to a gun stuffed into his belt. Apparently, he hadn't considered Daryl's point. Before he could figure out how to threaten anyone with just one hand, however, a strange sound began to float through the air. Everyone in front of the farm house fell silent, listening in the warm evening darkness as a droning noise reached them from the nearby woods.

Daryl rolled his eyes. Was it another vehicle? He was getting tired of all the new arrivals tonight, as if things weren't complicated enough with the people they already had around. But as he listened, he realized it was not a mechanical sound. It was almost like the bees that had stung him earlier. Not just one thing, but many things, and coming closer. Before they could find out what it was, another distraction caught his eye. The barn, out past the field, had just lit up with a yellow glow, pouring out through its slats and highlighting it against the night.

"What the hell is that?"

Everyone turned to Herschel, who coughed nervously.

"One of your relatives turn on the lights in there?" asked Rick. Daryl was amazed to notice that there wasn't any irony in his question, either.

"My dad's been lying to you all," said Maggie. They turned to her in surprise. "We don't have any dead relatives in there. That's not why he didn't want you all going into the barn."

"Then why?"

A gunshot rang out, from the direction of the barn. After a brief pause, several more gunshots came like whip cracks. Merle pulled out his pistol, spooked by all the sudden developments, and accidentally let go of Sophia in doing so. The girl ran up the porch to her mother, and Merle was about to aim at her when Daryl shouldered his crossbow again with a bolt ready to go. "Don't you move!"

"I'm your big brother, Daryl. Why'd you-"

The droning sound grew louder, and now Daryl noticed several dark figures coming across the field towards them. The gunfire from the barn had died down, but now that the sound was closer, he knew what it was. It was the hungry moaning of the undead. Beyond them, the darkness under the trees began to shift and coil, resolving itself into creeping forms that stumbled closer with outstretched hands.

The group looked around in panic. They were surrounded by zombies. And lots of them, too.

XX

* * *

_**Notes** - One more chapter to go. So, anybody still reading this? I enjoyed the last episode of the show. Seems like they're ratcheting up the zombie action, which is good._


	6. The New Daryl

**The New Daryl**

XX

The zombies closed in around them, moaning with hunger. They were coming from the forest, from out across the field in front of the barn; it was like they were converging on the house from everywhere in the whole county. There was no time to think, and nowhere to escape; they needed to get inside, and fast. Herschel and the others on the porch recognized this and darted inside, while Daryl motioned with his crossbow for Merle to follow him. His brother shot a vicious look at Morgan and Duane as he passed them, and they took up the rear behind Daryl, closing the front door behind them.

"They'll be on us any second," said Daryl. "We gotta close everything up and board the windows. Grab his gun," he told Rick, motioning for the pistol still tucked in his brother's pants. Rick pulled it awkwardly out. "Go tie him up so he can't cause any trouble."

"Some family loyalty you got," said Merle.

"Things have changed, big brother."

Daryl looked around the room. Carol and her daughter were now reunited, and the sight brought a smile to his face, just for a moment. But this was no time to celebrate an unexpected turn of events, seeing as they were all about to be zombie chow if they didn't get a move on. Herschel announced he had some boards down in the basement and left with several members of his family, whom Daryl didn't even recognize; apparently they had hung out in the farm house ever since he got here without actually saying anything. What a weird family. And there was Rick, off tying up his brother, with Andrea helping. Lori was probably in the bedroom with her son.

But where in the world were Shane and Dale? And where was Glenn and Maggie? This was just about the worst time for anybody to go missing. They were definitely short on people – and guns.

Herschel came back up from the basement with the boards and passed them out to everyone. One of his sons had hammers and nails; Daryl grabbed some and began to hammer a board into place across a window beside the front door. Glancing out, he could see the zombies approaching. The first of them was already on the front porch, its teeth gnashing as it caught sight of him on the other side of the glass. Many more lurched through the darkness behind it. Things were _not_ looking good.

"Where the hell is everybody?" he asked no one in particular.

"Maggie and Glenn disappeared after dinner," said Rick as he returned from tying Merle up. "Probably off to have sex in private."

Herschel shot him an irritated look.

"Er, I mean, probably to go do something productive around the farm? Don't make us leave!"

"Ain't nobody leavin' now," said Daryl as he finished nailing his board into place. The zombie on the porch pushed against the window, its milky eyes staring into the room, its hands searching for an entrance, confused by the glass. Alone, it couldn't get through. But once it had some friends pushing with it, Daryl didn't think those windows could last forever. He began to think this was a bad idea; maybe they'd be safe in here temporarily, but they couldn't board up everything in the house. Not unless Herschel had a whole hardware store down in his basement. The best idea might have been to make a break for it and give up the house before they were surrounded, but it was too late for that.

The house was beginning to ring with the sound of hammering and shuffling as people went to and fro with boards in their hands, but even among the racket, Daryl could hear the increasing moans coming from the zombies outside. They knew they had prey trapped inside the house. They could hear, they could smell – and it they got in, they could eat. He nailed a few more boards to his window, trying to ignore the unsettling sight of rotting faces pressed against the pane, spreading filth over it in a blurry mess as they their undead desires spurred them inexorably forth. The sound of hammering was broken for a moment by a loud shatter that came from the living room.

"_Help!_"

Daryl raced into the other room and found Lori against a window, struggling to free herself from a pair of arms trying to pull her through. Daryl rushed forward and smacked at one of the arms with the claw end of his hammer, pulling away a chunk of stinking flesh. The zombie howled in anger and pulled back, letting Lori free. "The couch," said Daryl. "Try to set it up against the window!"

They had barely started trying to hole themselves up, but Daryl knew it was already too late. They weren't going to hold back any zombies from this window with a couch, and they just didn't have enough people to block the other entrances fast enough. He could already hear the zombies pounding against the walls, their cries rising to howls as they grew angry at their inability to get through and claw their food to pieces.

"This isn't going to work," said Herschel. "We can't board anything up in time. There's only one option."

"What's that?" asked Daryl.

"We need to negotiate with them!"

Daryl gaped as Herschel ran to the front door of the house, which had not been boarded up. Before he could yell at the old man to stop, he flung open the door as everyone watched in horror. Several zombies had been clawing at the door to get in; they stood gaping in surprise now that it was opened for them.

"I know there must be something in there," Herschel told them, "something human, something left over from your lives. If you have anything in you that remembers, if you have any humanity left at all, please, just stop for one moment and listen to-"

The first zombie bit deeply into Herschel's shoulder, sending a spray of blood spattering against the wall beside the door. Herschel screamed in agony as a second one knocked the door open farther and sank its teeth into Herschel's arm, causing him to stumble back in pain. All three of them collapsed to the ground in a twisted heap, while a couple more zombies stumbled through the door and into the house, noticing more human treats waiting to be eaten inside. Rick took aim and shot one of them through the head with the gun he had taken from Merle. The other one was coming at Daryl with surprising speed, at least before he skewered its eye with a crossbow bolt.

"Fall back!" said Daryl. "We can shut the doors to the kitchen and try to get out the back way! Maybe there ain't as many waiting for us behind the house!"

One of Herschel's family members tried to pry the zombies off his dying father, only go get dragged down with him as yet another zombie stumbled in through the front door. Daryl had no idea who that kid was, but either way, he was dead as a doornail now. He turned over a couple of tables to block off a hallway as they left the front of the house and headed back towards the kitchen. They stopped at the bedroom where Carl and Sophia had been staying. "Sophia," said Carol, "come with us! We have to-"

Sophia appeared in the bedroom doorway, facing into the room with her back to them. She backed out slowly. Carl was in the room. For a moment, he looked alright – he had been bedridden earlier, but maybe he was feeling better. But something in his eyes, something in his shuffling walk, let Daryl know he wasn't better at all. He raised his crossbow as the boy stepped out into the hallway.

"No!" screamed Lori. She threw herself against him, but it sent both of them to the ground.

It was enough time for Carl to bite his mother on the neck as she tried to stand again. She screamed in pain. Rick pulled his son away, but the wound was obviously fatal. Daryl tried to aim the crossbow again, but Rick was in the way, struggling with his son – trying to hold him back but not hurt him at the same time. The sound of moans reached them from down the hall, and Daryl turned to see more zombies flooding in from the front of the house. His overturned tables had done nothing to slow them. He barely managed to stumble over Lori, still writhing on the ground and holding her neck, when the first of the zombies got to them. Rick shot one through the head while Carol and her daughter rushed back into the kitchen along with Morgan's son. Morgan himself held back in the hallway.

"Come on, Rick!" he shouted. "Let 'em go!"

Carl knocked Rick back with surprising strength and turned back to attack his mother on the floor. The other zombies managed to push inwards, and Rick wasted another couple of bullets firing at them and missing. "You don't understand!" he screamed as Daryl and Morgan pulled him back from the zombies, which fell on Lori. "She's my wife!"

"Hey, I had to shoot my damn wife in the head," said Morgan. "Well, okay, I chickened out, but the point is, woman's a zombie. Gotta accept things as they come, Rick! Now let's go!"

His wife had been struggling against the zombies as they pulled her back, but she gave her husband a look and nodded resolutely, no longer trying to escape. She knew she was doomed, and Rick knew it too. He took aim and fired. Lori fell back into the mass of zombies pressing down the hall. As Rick stood in shock, Morgan dragged him away, towards the kitchen.

Daryl barely managed to slip through the kitchen door and slam it shut before the zombies were on him. Even as he locked it, he could hear them clawing and pounding at the other side. There were too many of them out front, and if they were all pouring through the house now, they didn't have long before they broke into the kitchen, too. They'd have to go out the back door. He turned back to everyone else in the kitchen, and noticed them looking at an empty chair. A length of rope lay on the floor around it.

Andrea gave a nervous shrug. "Guess he got free," she said.

They didn't have time to think about where Merle might have gone. It was time to flee. Daryl was heading for the kitchen's back door when it flew open. He raised his crossbow again, cursing at the sight of just one bolt left over, but it wasn't a zombie that came in; it was Shane.

"Shane!" said Rick. "Where've you _been_?"

"I was, uh – well, I was out at the barn, checkin' things out. Where's Lori?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"I had an affair with her while we thought you were dead – I'm here to take her away."

"Well, she's dead, bud. That train's passed."

"Dammit!"

Shane was breathing heavily. Daryl noticed he had some kind of wound in his side; he was holding his hand to it, slumping in pain a little. "What happened there?" he asked.

"Nothin'. Just ran into a bullet, that's all."

A rumbling sound came from outside the kitchen's back door. It grew louder, and Shane backed away nervously – just in time to avoid getting run over as Dale's camper smashed through the side of the wall, sending the doorway flying into the room, along with a chunks of plaster and shattered wood. The ceiling buckled due to the sudden loss of support. Daryl flung his arms up over his head, expecting to be crushed, but the camper seemed to be holding it up at least for the moment.

As the dust cleared, swirling through the kitchen in the glare of the camper's headlights, Dale jumped out of the driver's side door with an assault rifle in his hand. Several zombies were approaching from out in the back yard; Dale mowed them down in a spray of gunfire before turning into the house and giving Shane a look that could cut glass. "Shane tried to kill me," he said. "And he killed Otis, too!"

"Lies!"

Shane aimed the gun at Dale before he could raise his assault rifle. Both Daryl and Rick took aim at Shane with their own weapons, although Rick was a little slower on the draw. "Shane," he said, "what are you doing?"

"Don't listen to that old man! He just got from the barn, and you know what? Herschel ain't got no relatives holed up in there, he's just growing a bunch of marijuana plants. Dale's hopped up on weed!"

"That may be true," said Dale, "but you're still a murderer."

"You're a liar! You tried to kill me first, and I didn't kill Otis, either. He just couldn't keep-"

Shane stopped talking and took a step back as a zombie stepped through the collapsed section of the wall beside the camper. Dale was nearly caught in its grasp before he jumped aside himself, and Daryl was about to shoot it with his last crossbow bolt when he noticed it wasn't just any zombie. And boy, was that awkward for Shane.

"_Otis?_"

The zombie groaned at Shane's question, but it was definitely Otis. And not just because it was pretty fat.

"There you go!" said Dale. "Look right there. Bullet hole in the leg!"

"Okay, fine, so I killed Otis! He was slowing me down, just like the rest of you've been doing. Dawdlin' here at this stupid farm run by a guy who thinks killing zombies is a bad idea, a guy who wants to take our guns away? Wasting time searching for a girl we know is dead when we need to get to the army base?"

"I'm not dead," said Sophia.

"Oh, my bad. I didn't notice-"

Shane had spoken too long. Zombie Otis knocked him down with its sheer weight. He screamed as the zombie bit into his flesh while everyone watched in horror. Daryl didn't really have any pressing need to save the guy, seeing as he was acting pretty unhinged, and there was no way even two of them were going to pry a zombie the size of Otis off of him. More concerning was the fact that he could see several more zombies outside the back of the house, beyond the hole in the wall punched by Dale's camper.

"_Help me!_"

Daryl whirled around to see the zombies had burst through the kitchen door and grabbed Andrea, who held her hands out in terror. Daryl grabbed one of them, trying to pull him back while Morgan grabbed the other, but it was too late. Undead arms wrapped around her body and pulled Andrea through the door frame. He barely managed to pull back before the zombies pulled him in too, and Andrea disappeared screaming into a mass of stinking flesh.

He drew back, turning over the kitchen table as one last momentary barrier against the zombies forcing their way into the kitchen, and almost tripped on Otis, who was still feeding on Shane as he died. The zombies breaking into the kitchen had distracted them all, and there was no saving Shane now. More zombies drew closer from outside, and hungry wails filled the air. It was time to say goodbye to Herschel's house of horrors.

Daryl quickly pried the gun from Shane's dead hand and used it to shoot Otis, giving him some final peace, before they all piled into the camper. It backed out of the broken wall and let the roof come crashing down into the kitchen as Dale brought it around, knocking over a couple of zombies with a crunchy squish in the process. They were about to head around the house and start towards the highway when they saw two more figures in the darkness just beyond the headlights. Dale was just about to hit the gas when Daryl stopped him.

"Hold on," he said. "They're waving their hands."

Dale peered more closely. "Well, I'll be damned. It's Glenn and Maggie!"

They stopped and opened the door, letting the two of them on before the zombies closed in. By this time, the undead seemed to be crawling all over the farm – Dary wondered where they had all come from. Maybe it was another herd, like on the highway, or maybe they had been drawn in while following Morgan, Duane, and his brother Merle. Either way, there was definitely no way they could stay anymore. "Where's everybody else?" asked Glenn as he looked around the inside of the camper.

"They're all dead," said Daryl. "Where were you two?"

"Having sex," said Glenn. "We didn't realize anybody was in trouble until just now."

Daryl rolled his eyes and took the passenger seat beside Dale. As the camper rumbled on, running over another zombie with a faint jolt, he frowned at the thought of hitting the highway. He had the feeling he was forgetting about something. After a moment, he realized what it was.

"Hey, Dale," he asked, "was Shane right about the barn?"

Dale nodded enthusiastically.

"Mind if we stop by?"

XX

The road passed by underneath, its double yellow lines pointing them on to parts unknown. Up ahead, the dawn sun broke through the tree line and cast its soft orange light over the landscape. Maybe they would always be like this. Outcasts without a home, always running with no finish line in sight. It was saddening, but at the same time, Daryl knew what was truly important was that they had escaped from the carnage of Herschel's farm. They were all there to see another day. They had survived. And that was one thing he was good at.

It was also important that they had grabbed a bunch of weed from the barn.

"Could you not smoke that in the front?" asked Dale.

Daryl coughed out a cloud of marijuana smoke. "Hey, I thought you liked this stuff."

"Not if there's so much smoke that I can't see the road."

"Sorry, dude."

He put out the cigarette in the extendable ash tray. Another really important thing, Daryl thought as he leaned over Dale's shoulder and stared at the fuel gauge, was to find some gas for this big-ass monster they'd been driving everywhere since they left Atlanta. They passed a sign that listed a gas station coming up in the next few miles, and there weren't many wrecks or abandoned cars slowing them down on the highway, thank God. Another benefit of having fewer survivors, as bad as that was to think about, was that everybody could fit in one vehicle, at least for now. Although it was a little cramped in here.

"Hey, I gotta pee," said Glenn. "Can we stop soon?"

Daryl pointed to the gas station coming up on their right. "There you go," he said. "Make it fast."

"Thanks for saving me, mister," said Sophia as she tugged on his shirt.

"Uh, no problem, little girl. Next time, try not to run off into the forest for no reason."

"You got it!"

Carol thanked him too, for what seemed like the fortieth time since last night. Technically he hadn't even saved her - Merle had been the one to bring her back to the house, even if it was just as a hostage so he could kill somebody else, and Merle having one arm was what gave her the opportunity to get away from him. But Daryl didn't mind. At least he hadn't at first. He had even enjoyed it, seeing as he and Dale were being treated kind of like the heroes of the hour – but now it was starting to get old. Maybe he didn't like stupid people like Rick and Shane calling all the shots before, but he wasn't an attention hog, either.

They pulled into the station and stopped by one of the pumps. Daryl wondered how much Dale got charged for gas in this thing back when people still had to pay for gas. Even if you were retired and driving around the country with your wife, it seemed like a hell of a way to waste money. Of course, about the only money he and Merle ever got was from moonshine selling operations, the occasional robberies, and the even more occasional honest day's work.

Dale started filling the camper up with gas as Daryl looked around, making sure there were no zombies ready to strike. The windows of the station's convenience store were shattered, much of the shelves inside looted, although he could still see a surprising amount of merchandise left. People must have been looting in a hurry. Dale seemed to be getting some gas, too. They were getting lucky at this station. If their luck could just hold out-

"Didn't think you'd leave me, little brother."

Daryl whirled around to find Merle, standing with a gun pointed right at him. His jaw dropped in confusion for a moment, wondering where his brother had come from, before he realized he must have been clinging to the top of the camper. Hiding there, getting on when Dale drove it through the side of the house to rescue everyone.

"Don't do anything stupid, Merle."

Morgan and Duane had just gotten out of the camper to have a walk around and stretch their legs. Merle grabbed Duane by the neck, snaking his stumpy arm around – obviously he had learned from his mistakes with Sophia last night. His good hand held the gun, which he aimed at Morgan, forcing everyone to stay back. Glenn and Maggie, once again, were nowhere to be seen. Dale had dropped his gas nozzle, but the sound caught Merle's attention, and he motioned for Dale to join Morgan in his line of sight before he could grab any guns from the camper. Daryl had his crossbow at the ready, but with Morgan's son in the way, there was no clear shot.

"I ought to kill you right now," said Merle. "It'd do you a favor. If dad could see what you are now-"

"Dad's dead," said Daryl. "And he was a lazy jackass. Move on."

"Don't you talk to me like that! I'm the one who knows best, or did you forget everything already? You and me, little brother, we were always a team. You and me were always lookin' out for each other. And you let these people leave me for dead so I gotta cut my own hand off?"

"We ain't a team, Merle," said Daryl. "We never were. You were never lookin' out for me."

"You got some nerve, boy!"

Daryl shifted the crossbow to aim better as Merle shifted his grip on Duane. It was his way of telling his brother this was the end of the line. He knew it now; he was a changed man, for sure. Maybe he had missed his brother at first, but he had only been missing the familiar, the past that he knew. Now that he had some perspective, he knew it wasn't a good past. Merle had never loved him. He was always his big brother's punching bag. He could see things clearly now, that was for sure. Maybe the end of the world had a way of doing that to people.

"You're choosin' _these_ people over me?" said Merle. "People you don't even know. Who are these folks to you?"

Daryl looked at Morgan and Dale, pressed against the camper as Merle kept a gun on them. He thought about Glenn and Maggie, probably off having a quickie in the station convenience store, oblivious to anything going on around them. He thought about Carol and Sophia – there was Carol, with the other two pressed against the camper, although Sophia was missing again. _Probably lost in that forest over there_, Daryl thought with a sigh.

None of them were people he knew well. None of them were people he had that much in common with. Well, they had one thing in common. They were survivors. And they had each other's backs. That was more than he could say for his older brother.

"They're my family."

Merle's eyes bugged out like he had just seen a zombie doing a tap dance. His grip on Duane shifted, and the boy took the opportunity to try to wrestle himself from his captor's grasp. Merle cursed and tried to keep him hooked in the crook of his arm, but just then, Sophia came running from the other side, where she had been hiding behind a gas pump, and kicked Merle in the shin. He yelled out in pain, his gun firing off into the air. Everyone ducked at the sound. Everyone except Daryl. He had his opportunity. He took aim, and fired.

"You son of a..."

Merle's words trailed off. His eyes twisted comically upwards, trying to see the crossbow shaft sticking out of his forehead. He stumbled a few steps, dropped his gun, and hit the asphalt with a sickening smack. Daryl took a step forward and stared at the body. That was his last bolt. Just then, Glenn and Maggie rushed out of the gas station and joined the group, way more out of breath than they should have been for a few dozen yards.

"What's going on?" asked Glenn.

"My brother was on top of the camper," said Daryl. "He's dead now, though."

"Sorry we missed it," said Glenn. "We were having a quickie in the gas station."

Daryl was expecting Maggie to slap him across the face, but she simply nodded in agreement.

"The RV's all filled up," said Dale. "It's time to go."

They all filed into the camper, and Dale fired it up. There were no zombies in sight – they had been lucky, this time. Very lucky.

Daryl felt a twinge of remorse as the camper pulled out of the station and started down the highway. He had just killed his brother. He remembered those days of traipsing through the forest, hunting down squirrels with wild abandon. The times they would play rope-a-pig, although it was annoying how Daryl always had to play the pig. All the times Merle would ask him if he had any spare change to get more medicine at the clinic for his STD's. Even the times they went to their white power rallies brought a tear to his eye, although 'white power' for Daryl always meant an excuse to get really drunk and fire guns off at logs.

He looked back into the camper. Duane smiled and nodded at him. He'd probably be hearing from Duane's boy about how he was such a hero, too. Daryl smiled back at the boy and his father. Glenn was there, reading some comic book – between the three of them, that was more colored folks than he had ever been around before. And the three of them seemed smarter than most of the white folks he knew. No, it was clear now. Daryl wasn't like his brother. Now that he had some time to think about it, he never really had been. He'd always been living under his brother's shadow, always taking orders and letting himself get bossed around. But there would be no more of that.

"Hey, Dale," said Rick. "Where are we headed?"

"I don't know. I guess we need to talk about that."

Rick nodded. "You know, I think I've had enough of being a leader. If Daryl wants the job, I'm open to it."

Daryl wasn't sure if he did want the job, but then again, he trusted himself in the position more than Rick. Not that Rick was a bad guy; and he felt sorry for him, now that he had lost his wife. He supposed they had all lost loved ones. The three of them stared at the road ahead, thinking about the ones they had left behind.

Daryl never thought he'd turn into a social butterfly during the apocalypse, but now was as good a time as any to try to on for size. He wanted to get to know Morgan and his son, Glenn and Rick. He wanted to get to know Carol, Sophia, Maggie, and Dale. It would be nice to know Maggie in a more personal way, but hey, if she liked Glenn, not much he could do about that. It was a shame about the people who had died at the farm house, but they were mostly the stupid ones anyway. And it wasn't like there was much else to do but socialize. All they had left was each other.

"So, what's next?" asked Dale. "Fort Benning?"

Daryl shook his head. "Man, those military types would kill us in a second. That's what they do in these zombie apocalypses. We gotta stay away from them."

"Maybe you got a point," said Rick.

"Then where are we headed?"

Daryl looked at the road ahead of them and shrugged his shoulders.

"Wherever the road takes us."

XX

* * *

_**Notes**: There's the end of the story. Hope you guys enjoyed it, and reviews are appreciated. This is my only Walking Dead story, but I've written for a lot of other shows (Breaking Bad, for instance, and a number of stories for Kim Possible). Check my profile out if you're interested in anything else._

_I was actually kind of ambivalent toward this story especially toward the end - I don't think I planned it enough, and I think maybe it's not a great idea to write a story for a show when you have mixed feelings toward the show in the first place. Parts of it do entertain me, though, and if you guys like it, that works for me. Obviously I left a couple of people alive in the story that have died on the show, and killed a couple of people that are alive on the show. I was actually going to kill Dale and Rick in this story but decided to keep them alive on a whim. Even though, as the last episode made clear, Dale REALLY sucks at spotting zombies._ :)


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